We have now heard directly from reliable sources, who have requested to remain undisclosed, that the ‘franchise’ sold recently by Microsoft is not that of FSX, but rather that of the newer “MSFlight“. We also learned that an official annoucement is to be expected soon, from the purchaser of the license.
This entity, which we are not yet at freedom to divulge, is no stranger to the simulation market. We will, of course, keep you updated as soon as more information becomes available.
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Well, that makes me happy, because – contrary to what many believe (esp. those who never really tried MS Flight) – MS Flight really does have a lot of potential !
I agree. Depending on what is done, mainly in removing the stupid marketing decisions, Flight is a very good platform to expand upon. The downside is that it will need a massive amount of background work to break the remaining links to the FSX base. making it 64-bit, DX11+, full multi-core support on both CPU and GPU is basically a full rewrite. Even without that, though, simply opening up the platform and getting people like Pete Dowson on side would make an exceptionally usable platform right now.
What does Flight offer that the current version of P3D does not?
Well, the ability to stall, sideslip and spin the default aircraft would be a good starting point.
The EULA for Flight lets you use the product for entertainment and gaming purposes whereas the EULA for P3D specifically excludes such use.
I wish the purchaser the best of luck and hope that we don’t see another situation where so many people lined up to see who could land the hardest punch.
That would be awesome as Flight is a superior sim. Put some third party addons in there and off we go! Time to go delete that P3DV2.0 thing from my SSD.
Soo confusing. …guess we just have to wait for the news.
FLIGHT could be something great if given the right room to grow. That being said I have little faith in what a future owner could bring to the table. Maybe being let down so much in this arena for the last 10 years has jaded me…
Flight has no ‘potential’ at all. It was designed as a game, to sell and earn money for microsoft and it’s not compatible with anything that exists in the FS world. Besides, it’s completely shut down to external developers (as is).
It’s ok for people who want to play flying games i guess, but don’t call it a simulator because it surely isn’t one, not even close.
James. Really. Try things for yourself before you come here and moan. People who actually looked below the surface gloss have a lot different opinion than those who never wanted to see anything else. The Icon is not a good way of showing off what Flight is capable of – yet another one of the stupid marketing decisions.
Go figure … if they would only listen to the FS players instead of the dollars.
I’m just wondering who the new owner might be -Aerosoft, perhaps?
I just thought about this, this may end up being another XBOX ONE title by a company Microsoft agreed to let further develop the product. FLIGHT at E3 screams XBOX ONE…
War ja klar ;-))
FACT: MS Flight died very quickly.
My OPINION: If a new company tries to resurrect the MS Flight concept, they will fail. If they try something new with the code and allow for the whole world from the start, allow for 3rd party development, and begin with a 64 bit platform then they will have my attention, I will ignore it otherwise.
Who the f… would buy this piece of shit?
As far as I know MS Flight is both 64bit and DX11and many features from FSX are still build into MS Flight, though not invoked.
So if it´s developed by the right people, then the future looks bright.
Flight is a game. FSX and P3D are simulators. Starting with the fact that flight was limited to one area and few planes by default and that you have to invest huge amounts of money to move up killed the game. Real simmers will not follow such a limited platform.
I absolutely agree!
Flight was released as a gaem, but it still has most stuff froma flightsim embedded in it´s code, some of these simply needing activation, like VOR stations etc.
Flight was defintly not developed from scratch, so it was probably build on ESP and then “Gamelished” to fit into MS new businessmodel..
This is absolutely GREAT News!!!! MS FLIGHT has the potential of becoming the best civil flight simulator ever!!!
It is loocked martin who will be happy
Finn Jacobsen
Tuesday, June 10, 2014 at 16:33 · Reply
As far as I know MS Flight is both 64bit and DX11and many features from FSX are still build into MS Flight, though not invoked.
That statement just shows how clueless most Flight! users were.
Flight! is 32bit and runs on DX9
Why is it assumed that the buyer would do the same completely ludicrous things Microsoft did? They are likely buying source code and the name. I have high hopes this might very well be the start of a next gen sim.
Flight’s published specs say it will run on 32-bit Windows and DX9. That doesn’t mean to say that code wasn’t developed for DX10 and 64-bit OSs, just that the minimum spec is 32-bit/DX9. My personal guess is that the code isn’t in there, but I don’t know that so won’t state it as a fact.
What I do know is that “clueless” means not having a clue what you are talking about and that applies more to the people who write Flight off as a “game” because that’s what they’re told to say. You develop “clue” by looking below the surface and investigating for yourself and there’s actually nothing missing from Flight that couldn’t be pretty easily remedied if someone wanted to. It is expandable, it is not a dead end, if someone decides to break the walled garden. Right now we have no evidence whether the new owner of the code wants to do that, or will just try and re-release Flight as it is. In my personal opinion, not breaking the walled garden would be an even bigger act of cluelessness than Microsoft’s own self-created disaster with it!
The whole Globe is in Microsoft Flight. Just take a closer look at the bgl’s in TMF viewer.
Exactly John. We know full well that Flight is based on the code for FSX – which is a weak point and a plus point.
1) It’s probably stuck in 32-bit/single core/DX9 land. Bringing that up to DX11 probably won’t be a massive task, but making it 64-bit and multi core compatible will be a much bigger issue.
2) Any other scenery can be put in exactly the same as Hawaii and Alaska were. The base tiles are there – you can fly outside the borders of the detailed scenery and see things, just not detail. In other words, exactly the same as FSX and P3D.
True, I have flown many times from Alaska to Hawaii. I still laugh at those who call it a game while calling FSX a simulator…..lol
Precisely, the base is still a globe. MS Flight was built around a “legacy engine”, but vastly improved for large scale scenery support. MS decided to launch the product while most of the geography was still missing. This “whole world” meme obviously won’t be MS Flight 2 biggest problem.
John
Tuesday, June 10, 2014 at 18:51 · Reply
The whole Globe is in Microsoft Flight. Just take a closer look at the bgl’s in TMF viewer.
.
Bob
Tuesday, June 10, 2014 at 18:57 · Reply
Exactly John. We know full well that Flight is based on the code for FSX – which is a weak point and a plus point.
1) It’s probably stuck in 32-bit/single core/DX9 land. Bringing that up to DX11 probably won’t be a massive task, but making it 64-bit and multi core compatible will be a much bigger issue.
2) Any other scenery can be put in exactly the same as Hawaii and Alaska were. The base tiles are there – you can fly outside the borders of the detailed scenery and see things, just not detail. In other words, exactly the same as FSX and P3D.
True, the whole globe is in Flight, I have flown many times from Alaska to Hawaii…it’s all there. People think just because it was released with a limited map that it wasn’t capable of anything else. Those who call it a game simply have their heads stuck up their you know whats….
MS Flight is dead for a reason. This just scratches the paint: When I fly a Maule M-7-260C Orion that depicts a life like cockpit yet the autopilot does not function, and this is by design(?). This is not “simulating” the Maule…dream all you want or use your imagination all you want but there is no autopilot in the MS Flight Maule. How about the cockpitLESS airplanes?…really realistic simulation…yea right! You could have the whole world to fly in, but with out a realistic functioning cockpit, who cares if you have the whole universe! Simply put, its still a simple game for beginners, simple gamers, and children. LOL
For the record: FACT- MS Flight IS 32 bit and IS DX9, I know this from the MS Flight team that developed it.
OPINON: if MS Flight had real WX, AI, and ATC similar to FSX it most likely would OOM too much. It crashed a lot when we got 7+players in a multiplayer session during beta. I have never seen a room with more than 5 players since then, so I gave up on the multi player part of MS Flight because VATSIM is a million times better.
The only time I run MS Flight is doing jobs when I want let others hear passengers/cargo vomit/scream in terror as I subject them to +/- 7 g’s; that is simulated better than the aircraft. ROFL
I think you’re missing the point. True, AP isn’t functional. Does that mean it can’t be made functional? My guess is it wouldn’t take the new developer an inordinate amount of time to fix this problem. By rushing it out the door MS didn’t tap into Flight’s full potential.
If you take a 500bhp car and restrict it using a code that limits it to 50bhp and 30mph, it’s still a 500bhp car – if you take out that restriction code, you can use the full capabilities of the car.
Flight is no different. You “unlock” instrument nav by getting the Maule or another aircraft that has appropriate receivers coded. If you put in detailed scenery, you “unlock” that area of the planet. You already know it can display weather, you already know it can display other aircraft. Want an autopilot? Enable the autopilot gauge, which will be identical code to, or incredibly similar code to, the FSX Maule’s autopilot gauge..
What it is currently allowed to display is not everything it can do. The entire community got that direct from the developers of the sim, because they stated that their development was redirected by marketing decisions in many places, several times.
When seen rapidly, Flight is a very seducing version, not mentioning its smooth performance but a closer look reveals a stripped version of FSX, not in the area covered but in the dynamic effects (the sea is stiff, a no man’s world all around; No AI on the ground, in the air or in the sea, no cars etc etc) thus all these reduction of effects and the removal of a living world, makes Flight perform in a seducing way. Then comes the limited area and fun factor… However, I like the fact that the game is “online”, it is a trend that proved useful especially when it comes to add-ons activation etc. However when the dev company controls the add-ons development things get boring and stiff… Flight might be an interesting platform if the world is brought back to its dynamic FSX form, the whole planet is covered in the same roughness as FSX and 3rd party add-ons are allowed yet even if they are deployed online through an activation process… Let’s see
Honestly we should be happy to see some movement now.
FSX has not and will not be upgraded, it has been stuck for serveral years now.
P3D is very much FSX on stereoids, but still FSX with alot of it´s limitations.
While Flight might not be a true 64bit app. I guess it´s much easier to convert it to 64bit than FSX / P3D, though I don´t say it will be easy.
What other alternatives do have other than hope that this will bring us a new more modern Flightsim version ?
At least I hope for the best of this, the other option is failure.
I never miss any point. MS Flight is dead and like I said I was just scratching the surface with all the problems it had as a “flight simulator”. This hobby has grown from wire frame mountains around a very small flight area in MSFS version 1.0 to the beautiful rendition of the whole world we have in FSX. MS Flight went backwards big-time and simmers did not permit it. That is the point. If another company is going to come along and try that method with us again it will not succeed. If they try another method then we will see. If its not 64 bit, the whole world included, 3rd party friendly, and a vast improvement over FSX/P3D then I will totally ignore the product and it will likely die just like MS Flight. But really anyway I don’t need to get anybody’s point, because we have our own points, there really is no single point here. This product will either succeed or it won’t its that simple.
I really love hearing about what is a game & what is a simulation. FSX & Flight come from ACES gaming studios & , if I recall, the boxes say GAMING on them. Both for entertainment. FSX sold in gaming stores. P3D has been sold as ‘not for entertainment’& has been certified as a simulator with some companies.
We going to call something we play clutching a gaming joystick in our grubby paws, in a darkened room a simulator? — apologies to those with yokes & pedels!
Anyhow, for the love of flying, virtual, we will see what comes out of this. Maybe some of us will appreciate what the vendors are doing for us.
while Flight was marketed as a game, if you switch off all the helper aids and dont fly the icon then you can see that its a simulator underneath. So hopefully the new licencee will strip away all the gaming elements and redevelop it as a pure simulator. The other problem was the pay as you go model and the locked down addon situation, if they got rid of that and we had the whole world, but had to pay for the program instead of buy individual countries or areas I think that it could be a great simulator. If you dont believe me, try turning off all the game aids and the dashboard and fly the Boeing stearman from the vc, its pretty good!
I agree that MS Flight can be enjoyable. I have had MS Flight from the 1st day of the beta test so I know the program very well. I wanted it to succeed, but now I’m glad it did not because I don’t want a company to tell us what we get. The phrase “the customer is always right” rings true because the customer has the money. Either a company provides the majority of simmers what they want or they will go out of business. True simmers don’t allow companies to limit realism or regress to something old. We all expect MS to deliver more in each new version, and when they failed at this they crashed and burned. The same is true for any company that acquires the license from MS; they better deliver something better than FSX/P3D or I hope it dies quick, and it will. I want them to deliver an excellent product, and I will gladly pay top dollar or work very hard as a beta tester to support their efforts. Customer service is another area, but we can wait on that.
Nope, I think we’re all in agreement with that post, Paul.
What we really need right now, of course, is the elusive press release with a name in it. Some intentions might be nice, as well.
Everyone can speculate as much as they like, but without a name and their intentions in the public domain, black and white, that’s all we’re achieving – burning up electrons!
I was thinking about this today and I’m wondering if its Aerosoft, as they were at one time going to develop their own sim, but haven’t heard anything about that recently, it would be a great way for them to get it off the ground!
They did. Aerofly FS was released almost two years ago. It looked pretty but it was terrible.
Aerofly fs wasn’t by Aerosoft! It was by IPACS, nothing to do with Aerosoft!… https://www.aeroflyfs.com/ and actually it was pretty good, if a little limited due to the fact you could only fly around Switzerland, hopefully one day they’ll expand it.
I wouldnt mid purchasing a copy of MSFlight, just to see what everyone is banging on about.
Microsoft Flight is free. You can get it here:
https://microsoftflight.com/en-us/getStarted/
What you can’t get any more, though, is the additional DLC content. In some cases (the cockpitless wonder warbirds) that’s no loss at all. In other cases, such as the Maule, Van’s RV and scenery packs, that’s not so good.
If you can still get the Stearman, do so. The Icon toy that you get given as part of the free pack, which was intended to be a “gentle introduction” does absolutely nothing at all to show what Flight can do. It’s probably 90% of the reason that people think it has no capabilities at all, because if all you’ve seen is the Icon, it doesn’t.
think the Stearman comes with Flight?
The only aircraft that came “completely free” was the Icon A5. You got the Stearman for linking your copy of Flight to the now defunct Games for Windows Live service. As GfWL was moved into X-Box Live and then technically killed off (although I can apparently still log into this non-existent service…) then you may no longer be able to get the Stearman.
Aerofly fs wasn’t by Aerosoft! It was by IPACS, nothing to do with Aerosoft!… https://www.aeroflyfs.com/ and actually it was pretty good, if a little limited due to the fact you could only fly around Switzerland, hopefully one day they’ll expand it.
I read weird things here. The Marketplace was shut down in August last year. A few simmers claim they were still able to purchase DLC, but my feeling only because of some remaining loopholes in the system. Last year a gamer site showed a MS memo, specifying that MS would officially shut down Games for Windows Live (GFWL) on the 1st of July, 2014. That’s less than two weeks from now. Nobody knows what will happen next (if anything happens at all).
There was a brief loophole, after the GfWL store was closed, when you could still get the pay DLC through Steam, in the form of GfWL codes. I got my one-and-only paid cockpitless wonder, the C-46, that way using Steam credit.
Flight will run not logged in to GfWL, so the closure of the system won’t kill it completely as being usable. Hopefully it will get rid of the stupid adverts in the corner, advertising content you already have, though.