MS Flight Simulator

[Wraith]

The development studio behind the Microsoft Flight Simulator series was part of the recently announced Microsoft layoffs (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=4862). But apparently the series isn't dead yet. From Boomtown (http://pc.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=17328):By now I'm sure you've heard the news that Microsoft has laid-off the ACES development team behind the hugely popular Flight Simulator series.

Flight Simulator was Microsoft's oldest product still in continued development - it pre-dates Windows by years - and many former ACES members have been posting online that this is a black day for the flight sim hobby.

However there's light at the end of the tunnel. We put in a call to Microsoft earlier and received the equivalent of a "no comment", however I've just received another email from a Microsoft PR spokesperson who had this to say:

"We can say that you should expect us to continue to invest in enabling great LIVE experiences on Windows, including flying games, but we have nothing specific to announce at this time."

The last version of the simulator, Flight Simulator X was released in October 2006. Flight Sim 11 has yet to be officially announced.

Given this reply from Microsoft what do we expect to happen? Well with ACES laid-off we expect that Microsoft is pausing Flight Sim development for now rather than stopping completely. It sounds like there will be a Flight Sim 11 albeit with a larger gap between versions than we've come to expect.

(GrenMag posted an entry in the series in the screenshot thread (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showpost.php?p=157201&postcount=1669) today.)

[Chill]

Hmmm, well I'm not sure how to react to that news. Flight Simulator is an amazing series that I'd hate to see go. Not sure what MS's motivation was behind this. I imagine sales haven't been what they could be, but is MS loosing sight of its intended audience? I mean, the same people who bought Flight Simulator X will likely buy the next iteration, so what's the point of closing them down? That there's no chance it will become the next Halo? Fuck that.

Or, could this be the start of moving the series to the 360/LIVE? Or, at least, do cross-platform development to try bringing the genre to consoles? Well, maybe not the genre as we know it. I like how they said they would continue development of "flying games", not flight simulators. Well, on the plus side, seems like a new Crimson Skies game may be a possiblity :)

[J Arcane]

The point is, MS doesn't really give a fuck about PC gaming except when it suits them as a marketing blurb to sell copies of Vista/7.

[Hemalin]

Well, on the plus side, seems like a new Crimson Skies game may be a possiblity :)
Microsoft really should set FASA to work on that...wait, maybe the Flight Simulator team can make it...oh...