Microsoft Lays Off Entire Flight Sim Team

Dutch Gun writes "Microsoft has just laid off the entire Flight Simulator development team. This continues a long-running trend of terminating or severing relationships with game development studios, such as the Bungie split, FASA, or the closure of Ensemble Studios. While one would presume that core Xbox development is not currently in jeopardy after Microsoft spent up to a billion dollars to pay for Xbox 360 repairs and salvage its reputation with gamers, does this signal a reversal from Microsoft's recent focus on internal game development? And what are its plans for Flight Simulator, a twenty-seven-year product with an extremely loyal user-base and a multitude of externally developed add-ons?"

Comments

Who frigging knows?

[Jane Q. Public]

Microsoft's "strategy" moves have not seemed to make any sense for years now.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[El Lobo]

Why? MS flight simulator is not precisely a big seller. In other words, we are not talking about Guitar Hero or World of Warcraft that everybody and their cats own. We are talking about a game that 3 or 4 geeky souls buy and the rest of those who care just get a copy on pirate bay. It's not a secret that MSFS has been a waste of money for the company since version 5. Since then MS has been updating it more for the love of art than for the money. Now the situation is different and every single hole in the economy must be closed, so....

Re:Who frigging knows?

[Anonymous Coward]

MSFS sold far more than most people realize. It's no WoW, but few things are. You don't need to sell 7 million copies to turn a profit.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[ushering05401]

Microsoft's "strategy" moves have not seemed to make any sense for years now.

Ok, I could come up with a bunch of anecdotal support for your comment, but MS has been into the subscription software idea for years. Part of their press on this mentions the possibility of Live based flight sim options.

So this particular move seems to fall right in line with the push to move customers to a greater everyday dependency on MS for the products they used to have the freedom to do with as they pleased (after lawful purchase of said product of course).

Re:Who frigging knows?

[TheRaven64]

Flight Sim 4 was pretty amazing. It ran on my 8086 with an EGA display and had all sorts of configurable options in the physics engine. I can probably thank time wasted with flightsim for the fact that I completed my gliding scholarship in about half the allotted flying hours. It wasn't as exciting as some other flight simulators - my favourite at the time was F29 Retaliator which let me connect a null modem from my PC to my father's laptop and fly head-to-head[1] - but it was still fun. FlightSim 5 improved the graphics, but reduced the amount of tweaking you could do without buying add-ons. Later ones? Meh.

[1] You could also do this with FlightSim 4, but it was very flakey and there was no collision detection between aircraft, so you could fly right through each other and there wasn't much point in being in the same environment. The chase mode was quite fun, except that the connection kept dropping out.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[mrphoton]

I don't understand why do they not just sell the whole team and game to somebody else?

Re:Who frigging knows?

[ozmanjusri]

MS has been into the subscription software idea for years. Part of their press on this mentions the possibility of Live based flight sim options.

Yep, Microsoft is suiciding.

The backlash against any attempt to turn Flight Sim into rentware will just push people over to Flightgear.

With this sort of arrogance, the Vista/Win 7 debacle and sluggish Office 2007 adoption, Microsoft is digging a very deep trench for itself. It'll be interesting if they can find a way out.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[Dutch Gun]

I think you'd probably be surprised at how many people buy Flight Simulator. It's not a traditional game, so it probably doesn't sell well among those you know and game with. There are many, many non-gamers with PCs who spend a lot of money on this game, expensive peripherals, and software add-ons.

When discussing this among my co-workers today, most of us were under the impression that Flight Simulator had been a consistent money-maker for Microsoft. I couldn't find any corroborating evidence for this (although I didn't look all that hard), so I left that speculation out of the summary. To me, that's what made this so surprising. I would have thought that any product was consistently profitable would be a no-brainer to keep, especially one that had such a long history. It could be that my information is outdated and Flight Simulator is no longer profitable - it would certainly help to explain the cuts.

I have this sneaking suspicion (and a smidge of insider info from a co-worker lended credence to this theory) that MS is somewhat myopically focused on casual games at the moment, which makes a certain amount of sense given the success of the Wii, the recent ridiculousness of Xbox's mii-too "avatars", etc. Thus, their statement about continued development of Live makes sense, since Live games are more easily "monetized", a market-speak term for shoving ads down our throats. It could be that anything that doesn't currently fit that paradigm has likely gotten the axe.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[drsmithy]

I don't understand why do they not just sell the whole team and game to somebody else?

In case they want to resurrect it later.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[NeverVotedBush]

Microsoft Flight Simulator is the ONLY reason I still keep an XP partition on one of my computers.

If I really need to run Microsoft Office, I do that using CodeWeaver's Crossover Office under Linux.

Microsoft's decision to drop Flight Simulator means that I won't have to even consider Windows 7. I'll just disconnect from my network whenever I want to fly so there is no risk to an abandoned XP partition.

I'm one of those that has bought every copy of Flight Simulator even before Microsoft bought it from Bruce Artwick and SubLogic. I flew it when it was a wire frame grid with the profile mountain range to the north. I even wrote a shareware application for it that still can be found in various software repositories on the web. It has evolved into an amazing platform and some enthusiasts have built amazing motion cockpits and even full simulations of jet airliner cockpits.

I also thought every release of Flight Simulator was profitable. For all of Microsoft's other ills, Flight Simulator has been one of the more popular offerings that people preordered, snapped up on release day, etc. there were flawed releases, but Microsoft would release updates that fixed them.

Microsoft Flight Simulator was really a flagship product for them. I don't know what they are thinking. If any of the team read this, I really appreciate all of your fantastic work over the years. You people made magic.

It really has been an amazing product and extremely useful. I know lots of real pilots that use it to stay sharp and/or used it to make their training more effective. I can count myself among the ones who had a flight instructor get frustrated that I was flying more by instruments and less by seat of the pants, doing coordinated procedure turns, holding heading and altitude first time out.

But I wouldn't be surprised if the Linux flight simulators (X-Plane and FlightGear) pick up all the slack. The hard core people will go nuts putting in the hooks for realistic cockpits, added inputs, etc.

It's an end of an era. For me it totally cuts the cord to Redmond, Gates, and Allen.

I'll sure miss updates to Flight Simulator but in a way am kind of relieved that I will never buy another copy of Windows again.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[scientus]

but it happens to be the only thing microsoft has ever sold that is worth its weight. I dont like microsoft, bu flight simulator is a really good similar and nothing else will beat it for quite a while even if it isnt being maintained.

Im not saying that microsoft created something great, they did get flight simulator through a buy out, but this just shows how microsoft will only work on things that they have an unfair advantage at selling crap or wiping out competitors rather than working on something that is actually good.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[MBGMorden]

I dont like microsoft, bu flight simulator is a really good similar and nothing else will beat it for quite a while even if it isnt being maintained.

Actually, though I don't do more than tinker with them every so often, most of the other pilots I've spoken to seem to favor X-Plane as being a far more realistic simulator than MS Flight Sim. Not as polished, but it depends on whether you're going for something that's closer to a game or closer to a tool.

http://www.x-plane.com/

Re:Who frigging knows?

[scientus]

yeah i did not know about that simulator before today, im definetely going to check it out

Re:Who frigging knows?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Slashdot Property: for every unpopular technology product, there exists at least one Slashdot member who is a lifelong fan and will vocally complain about it being discontinued.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[LWATCDR]

I am pretty much in the same boat. I keep Windows just for FS2004 and FSX and CAD. Microsoft Flight Sim is one of those historic benchmark products. Microsoft would be stupid to dump it. Heck I wounder if the Apple might not pick up the dev team. I would buy a Mac if that was the only way to get FS.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[Khuffie]

Microsoft didn't really have much choice with Bungee. Sure, they were in control of the company, but they weren't in control of the people working there (ie, the creative talent). They could have held on control to Bungie, with the creative talent choosing to leave to be in control of their own fate, or release control of Bungie back to its talent, foster a relationship with them and make sure they continue to use their talent to support their console.

You're right though. Ensemble Studios doesn't make much sense, neither does this.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[T-Bone-T]

Why can't Flight Simulator run on Windows 7?

Re:Who frigging knows?

[WiiVault]

It probably will, but I think the sentiment is that he can just keep using XP and the current (final) version, no need to upgrade since he doesn't use Windows for anything else.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[Bitsy Boffin]

But I wouldn't be surprised if the Linux flight simulators (X-Plane and FlightGear) pick up all the slack. The hard core people will go nuts putting in the hooks for realistic cockpits, added inputs, etc.

Funny how people see things differently.

One of the reasons that I left Flight Sim behind years ago to use FlightGear instead was cockpits, "photo realism" is all well and good but I'll take a basic looking 3D cockpit (like basically all Flight Gear aircraft) over a 2D cockpit of any quality (like basically all Flight Sim aircraft) any day.

As for X-Plane, I tried it once a year or so ago. It was crap compared to Flight Gear, in my opinion.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[NeverVotedBush]

Flight Simulator supports the TrackIR head tracking system. It's pretty amazing all set up in the 3-D cockpits to be able to look around just by turning/tilting your head a little.

It takes a little getting used to, but being able to look up and to the right or left as you bank in on final to line up with the runway is a thrill and also extremely useful and natural. I've also flown full-up military sims with full motion, and Microsoft Flight Simulator with Track-IR for head tracking really doesn't suck even compared to the top-end real sims.

And for the person above that noted that Windows 7 will run MSFS, WiiVault is right. There is no need for me to upgrade since Microsoft won't likely be coming out with any more versions of Flight Simulator.

But I guess it's time to start checking out FlightGear and seeing what it's like....

Re:Who frigging knows?

[sponga]

Uhhhh duhhh
Flight Simulator has not been selling like it used to and they are probably fresh out of ideas.

I could even tell that Flight Sim was not selling by the amount of Boxes stacking up at the local FRY's, those games aren't selling anymore and they have moved them over to the crappy section of the shelves.
When your product gets denominated to a lower shelf or a corner, well you know where your product stands.

X-Plane is good but Microsoft has always kicked its butt in most areas.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[Mozk]

You're forgetting about Clippy.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[Xenophore]

Microsoft will probably come out with FSXI, but it will require you to fly with a co-pilot named Bob and Clippy will pop up from time to time saying, "It looks like you're trying to file a flight plan."

Re:Who frigging knows?

[Mattcelt]

FS' niche falls outside of the mainstream gamer culture, so it doesn't get much press. But lack of notoriety != lack of sales by any stretch. I know of many professional pilots who use FS to do ILS (Instrument Landing System) training, which cuts down on big-dollar simulator training times and improves checkride success rates considerably.

Labor of love or not, Microsoft would not have continued development of an unprofitable software product for 15+ years. It just wouldn't happen.

Re:Who frigging knows?

[The Gaytriot]

Microsoft Clippy is the ONLY reason I still keep an XP partition on one of my computers.

If I really need to run Microsoft Office, I do that using CodeWeaver's Crossover Office under Linux.

Microsoft's decision to drop Clippy means that I won't have to even consider Windows 7. I'll just disconnect from my network whenever I want to clip so there is no risk to an abandoned XP partition.

I'm one of those that has bought every copy of Clippy even before Microsoft bought it from Bruce Artwick and SubLogic. I flew it when it was a wire frame grid (that's basically a paperclip, right?) with the profile mountain range to the north. I even wrote a shareware application for it that still can be found in various software repositories on the web. It has evolved into an amazing platform and some enthusiasts have built amazing motion clippypits and even full simulations of jet airliner clippypits.

I also thought every release of Clippy was profitable. For all of Microsoft's other ills, Clippy has been one of the more popular offerings that people preordered, snapped up on release day, etc. there were flawed releases, but Microsoft would release updates that fixed them.

Microsoft Clippy was really a flagship product for them. I don't know what they are thinking. If any of the team read this, I really appreciate all of your fantastic work over the years. You people made stuff.

It really has been an amazing product and extremely useful. I know lots of real clippy enthusiasts that use it to stay sharp and/or used it to make their training more effective. I can count myself among the ones who had a clippy instructor get frustrated that I was clipping more by instruments and less by seat of the pants, doing coordinated procedure turns, holding heading and altitude first time out.

But I wouldn't be surprised if the Linux clippy simulators (X-Clippy and ClippyGear) pick up all the slack. The hard core people will go nuts putting in the hooks for realistic clippypits, added inputs, etc.

It's an end of an era. For me it totally cuts the cord to Redmond, Gates, and Allen.

I'll sure miss updates to Clippy but in a way am kind of relieved that I will never buy another copy of Windows again.

I'm sorry about this.

I prefer X-Plane

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Hopefully they'll spend their spare time contributing to X-Plane -- a much better simulator if actual flight simulation is important to you. I was very disappointed to learn that the helis in MS Flight Sim are actually just fixed-wing aircraft with unrealistically large flaps and other such hacks. X-Plane uses a much more realistic flight physics engine. And since I fly RC helis, I have to say that MS's sim always felt strange, not like a giant RC heli at all.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they'll spend their spare time contributing to X-Plane

Are you serious? Contribute to a competing commercial product!? So that they'd have tougher competition if they get to continue working on MSFS. If they want to continue working on related stuff, they'll apply for jobs at companies developing third-party addons for MSFS.

I take it that you're disappointed with the simulation of helicopters - I'm quite disappointed with the simulation of advanced fly-by-wire aircraft. The 777 is fine since the system in the real thing is coded to behave very much like hydraulics in order to be familiar for pilots. However, the more advanced Airbus systems really suck compared to the real thing even though they're made by third-parties that put in an enormous effort compared to what MS puts in in the included aircraft. Obviously, I've never flown the real aircraft but I've heard enough from real pilots on aviation forums that have assisted the simulator community with developing their own (free) aircraft (which - unfortunately but obviously - also suck due to the limitations in MSFS). The inclusion of an Airbus (an A321) in MSFS by MS for the first time (in FS X) did little to improve the development of fly-by-wire systems (it - like all included aircraft - obviously is complete garbage compared to the hideously expensive third-party aircraft). It is of course possible that it isn't worth putting much development effort into that niche since not that many simulator fans fly Airbus (judging from the simulator forums, at least - I don't know about the sales figures). Maybe that group of fans will grow now with the A380, though, since more people might want to fly it simply because it's the biggest :)

As far as the physics engine is concerned, the principles behind it haven't AFAIK changed since version 1.0 - it uses a lot of tables instead of performing physics calculations and the only improvements have been to increase the table sizes with each new release so that the interpolations are less extreme.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[KDR_11k]

Hm, yeah, X-Planes doesn't get many addons it seems. An Amazon search returned 35 results for X-Plane and 666 for Flight Simulator.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[the_lesser_gatsby]

Not all third-party aircraft are hideously expensive.

MSFS is worth the entry price for David Maltby's exquisite (and free) models of classic 60s British jets.

Superb graphics and models. Check out this pic:

dmflightsim

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[darkeye]

yes, I'm also an X-Plane user - it's much better, and it's cross platform - works on Mac, Linux, Windows..

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

But if they are no longer employed by MS, then X-Plane is no longer competition. Unless MS are going to let them start up their own outfit and hand over all the code and other IP. Sure, they might get a job for MSFS add-ons, but that's hardly a certain thing -- some of them may not even want to do that.

As for good FBW simulation, "X-Plane's flight model can handle flying wings and fly-by-wire systems". I have no idea if that covers what's needed for the 777, but worth looking into if that's your thing.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[4D6963]

X-Plane is great, but not in all areas. The super-sonic flight model sucks, there's a lot of improvement to be brought in areas that are just a let down (I haven't played it in a while, but I'd say things like roads in the sky, no reflective textures (non-shiny matte airplanes? The 1990s just called..), a feeling that it could be all optimised a bit, have some better graphics on things like smoke (individual rounds of smoke? come on..), rain (the rain looks awful), crash effects, and so on...

My point is, X-Plane is great, but very specific interest, i.e. it's great for its subsonic flight model and modelling planes, seeing how they really handle and all that.. but the one guy who programs it has no interest in only taking a piece of his pie, but more importantly, there aren't that many good flight simulators out there, some alternatives would be welcome.

I for one would love a flight simulator that looks like what it looks like when you look out the window in an airplane, and also good combat a la Chuck Yeager's Air Combat or F/A-18 Korea..

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[jalefkowit]

Presumably if Flight Sim disappears most of the user base will migrate to X-Plane, and then the add-on developers will start bringing over their products as well.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[Rich0]

The main issue with X-plane is that nobody actually uses it (comparitively). The flight model is clearly superior in most situations. However, it lacks quite a bit of polish (voices sound robotic, graphics aren't as nice, flight-planning/etc isn't user-friendly, etc). It also lacks the MASSIVE library of add-ons. Many people stuck with FS2004 just so that they wouldn't have to give up their $500 libraries of add-ons (there was some compatibility, but generally not with super-advanced expensive payware aircraft). Granted, FSX also had serious performance issues on anything but the newest hardware, but from what I've seen as long as your equipment isn't too old you can turn down every graphics setting and end up with something that performs like 2004 while looking slightly better. I suspect the upgrades to FSX have tended to follow hardware upgrades as a result.

There is no question that X-plane could overtake MSFS if it wanted to, but I get the impression that the X-plane crowd doesn't want to "bow" to those who want the polished experience. If that remains the case I wouldn't be surprised if another simulator springs up from nothing and overtakes both X-plane and MSFS (unless MS gets back into the game).

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[Glonoinha]

LOMAC. Lock-On Modern Air Combat

Drink one glass of your favorite 80 proof adult beverage, turn off the lights and fire up LOMAC and you will have a hard time discerning it from reality (at least with respect to visuals.)

The combat is also absolutely amazing.

Pick it up for under $20 in the bargain bin - it's worth it.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[quacking duck]

If you're searching Amazon it seems you're only looking for paid or official products, but why? Most X-Plane add-ons are free.

The biggest X-Plane enthusiast site is x-plane.org, which lists over 2500 aircraft and hundreds of scenery/airport packages.

X-Plane also runs on Mac and Linux, not just Windows. A stripped-down version even runs on iPhone.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[earthforce_1]

I just wish X-Plane had full 64 bit linux support and actual city landmarks, at least as downloadable add-ons I was a bit disappointed when I took off from Toronto Island and couldn't find Ontario Place or the CN tower. And I was so looking forward to flying in the Toronto air show.

I would love to see formation flying and combat over a LAN added. Oh, and take out the "must insert CD" copy protection please - it doesn't stop piracy and is just annoying.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[LoadWB]

That is a pretty neat screen shot. As a non-pilot, I find flight fascinating and often wish I could see the view from the cockpit window while traveling.

I would bet that such a view is not for the faint-of-heart. I have been on a few planes which have the drop-down LCDs, even one which had the screens in the back of the headrests. I think it would be cool to select "Pilot's view" provided by a small camera in the cockpit.

As an extension, providing that with a recording system might also be helpful to NTSB investigations in the event of a mishap.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[LoadWB]

I have heard that your asshole is quite well documented on the Internet.

Couldn't resist.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[KDR_11k]

Yeah but someone who's out of a job might be more interested in projects that pay.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[that this is not und]

True, but it looks like the tools for generating add-ons for X-Plane are free and bundled with the product (for a total price of $39.) So maybe nobody cares enough whether the Microsoft devs are paid or not.....

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[Bitsy Boffin]

You seem to have made an error in your statement, please allow me to correct you.

Hopefully they'll spend their spare time contributing to FlightGear -- a much better simulator if actual flight simulation is important to you.

Seriously, FlightGear > X-Plane on so many levels.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[quacking duck]

IIRC with X-Plane 8 the add-on tools are included with the demo download. I don't know if this remains the case with v9.

It's a double-whammy for MS Flight Sim developers though.

First, the FS division was actually axed (unlike Bungie, which became an independent company again).

Second: they probably won't find work at any companies producing FS add-ons, since they themselves will likely (in the next couple of years) stop making add-ons for a dead product.

So even if they try staying within the FS realm, they'd be stuck producing freeware or shareware add-ons.

Re:I prefer X-Plane

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I've never seen roads in the sky. As for non-shiny planes, X-Plane isn't designed for eye-candy. Although, if you have a powerful system, you can get the terrain to look really good (which is more important that the outside of the aircraft). As for supersonic flight simulation, I think it's a bit unfair to put X-Plane down on that because AFAIK, no other flight sims for the same price do that, either. Where's the evidence that he has no interest in working on that?

Contract it out

[kaos07]

They'll probably contract out the development of the next Flight Sim, if they choose to develop it. Firing the dev team helps their balance sheet in the short term and when they choose to develop it they might lease the license or hire an external company to develop the game.

Re:Contract it out

[NeverVotedBush]

For better or worse, that will mean basically starting from scratch. Doing that with a new team would mean a huge step backwards and/or really buggy for some time.

I tend to think that this effectively ends Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Even if they sell the sim to another company, without the people familiar with the code and why things were done the way they were, it's again like starting over.

If MS does decide to resurrect Flight Simulator at some time in the future, it would most likely have few new features but lots of new bugs.

Re:Contract it out

[Cyberax]

I know for a fact that some versions of Flight Simulator were developed by external company.

Actually, I'm curious when they brought development back in-house.

Somewhat disappointing

[Drinking Bleach]

I've been feeling for a while now that Microsoft should probably just drop everything and become solely a games developer (with a possible exception of MS Office, their only real successful product, put that on the Xbox or something).

Re:Somewhat disappointing

[MichaelSmith]

I've been feeling for a while now that Microsoft should probably just drop everything and become solely a games developer (with a possible exception of MS Office, their only real successful product, put that on the Xbox or something).

You give up on that idea of selling an OS?

Re:Somewhat disappointing

[im_thatoneguy]

Yeah when you have a total market dominance and put your product on 90% of all computers sold you know it's time to quit before you make too much money.

Re:Somewhat disappointing

[MichaelSmith]

Yeah when you have a total market dominance and put your product on 90% of all computers sold you know it's time to quit before you make too much money.

Look out for that chair, talking like that.

Re:Somewhat disappointing

[Drinking Bleach]

Last time I heard of MS SQL (about a year ago), it was called by the person I was speaking to "As an utter waste of money, just go for Oracle for something good"; paraphrased, but the enthusiasm for MS SQL was lacking obviously.

Re:Somewhat disappointing

[El Lobo]

Funny, last time I talked with the person responsible for the FC databases at my university, the guy was speaking lyrically about MSSQL and didn't care about the Cambro DB running on Oracle at all.... I guess opinions are like noses.

Re:Somewhat disappointing

[CarpetShark]

I've been feeling for a while now that Microsoft should probably just drop everything and become solely a games developer

Indeed. Minesweeper always was more on their level.

Google Earth

[vuo]

Right now Google has a VERY good opportunity to hire and release a Google Earth-based flight simulator.

Re:Google Earth

[MichaelSmith]

Right now Google has a VERY good opportunity to hire and release a Google Earth-based flight simulator.

Flight sims take years of tweaking to get working well. Google do have a history of selling applications (sketchup comes to mind) but the things they do sell seem to be mere outlines of a mature product.

Re:Google Earth

[stephanruby]

Right now Google has a VERY good opportunity to hire and release a Google Earth-based flight simulator.

Why write a Google Earth-based flight-simulator when your users are already writing flight simulators on top of your platform? I think they should just let their users create the cool content and the cool apps, and just stick to the monetization of all that good stuff.

Re:Google Earth

[ps]

You mean like this?

http://earth.google.com/intl/en/userguide/v4/flightsim/index.html

ps

Re:Google Earth

[vuo]

Yes I know of that, but it's just a toy.

Re:Google Earth

[vuo]

Yes, that's exactly why they'd want the MS developers as soon as possible. It would save those years.

Re:Google Earth

[CastrTroy]

Maybe they can just create a customized version of FlightGear.

Re:Google Earth

[LoadWB]

Of course... because everything Google is beta :P

FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[Opportunist]

FS doesn't really push any game sales. Someone playing FS doesn't necessarily buy any other game, I know a few FS enthusiasts and they're anything but gamers. They're living room pilots. You have people that turned one of their rooms into a cockpit for "total immersion". They don't play any FPS or RTS games, and they certainly don't buy consoles.

MS might have decided they're not interested in this kind of market. It does not push any sales of any other products of their line. It certainly won't push sales for any consoles, since FS enthusiasts wouldn't be caught dead with a console controller in their hands. And unless they manage to publish a full scale cockpit addon for their console, they certainly won't move from the one they have already. FS might have been a seller for new OSs, when the new FS didn't work out with the earlier model anymore, but the number of dedicated FS customers isn't really a customer base for MS. FS customers also don't really need any of their office products or their server line products.

So MS might just have decided that this is a dead end, nothing that sells any other products of theirs.

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[dltaylor]

I would love to have a console flight sim on the Wii. Let me use a decent USB flight stick and include a control pad for the other controls (flaps, throttles, gear, ...).

I do NOT have "Flight Simulator", because it only runs on M$-Windows, and I use Linux (with a touch of OpenBSD).

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[Opportunist]

For what we know it could just as well have been the pet project of someone who happened to be important for some reason for the higher ups at MS, it was profitable, so they kept it running. Now he left and someone who hates him now gets to call the shots and thus the beloved project of someone he hates get shot down. I've seen something like this happen before, in other companies, I wouldn't call it too far fetched.

Just because MS is a large corporation doesn't mean it doesn't suffer from petty rivalism.

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[thogard]

I had heard that FS was one of Bill's pet projects from back when he was trying to get his pilots license. I'm not sure if thats true or not but several of the high level people at Microsoft can fly their own planes.

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[Glonoinha]

Just out of curiosity - wasn't this series originally put out by Sublogic, and then bought by MS (in the mid to late 80's)?

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[drinkypoo]

MS might have decided they're not interested in this kind of market. It does not push any sales of any other products of their line. It certainly won't push sales for any consoles, since FS enthusiasts wouldn't be caught dead with a console controller in their hands. And unless they manage to publish a full scale cockpit addon for their console, they certainly won't move from the one they have already.

Do you realize how far back in time you have to go to find a console that doesn't have USB? Two generations, now! In video game time, that might as well be eternity. They all have networking options for generations now, too. You could have a cluster of consoles, and USB hubs. They don't do this now because they don't want you to know the console is just a computer. But there's room for it in the market. I for one would be pleased as punch to dropkick PC gaming forever. And then, to dropkick PCs forever. Just have a game console cluster. Even the Xbox can output 1080i which is a minimally adequate resolution for high performance computing :)

There are many reasons why this probably won't happen soon. But you could definitely get more than adequate performance out of a cluster of game consoles, one per display. If I ran Microsoft, it would probably go in the toilet immediately. But I would want to implement the console clustering model, which you could do with GigE. And I'd go back to the Xbox model, which actually worked amazingly well - just make a damned PC. Surely you could get one of the reputable manufacturers to put something together. I'd be inclined to build it around some kind of super-graphics Phenom today, but by then who knows what will have the price-performance ratio locked down? (Consider the price of the full chipset etc.)

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[ddillman]

Yes. I owned a copy of FS2.0 for the Apple II. I also acquired a copy of the original FS, wireframe graphics and small bounded world... I was quite disappointed when SubLogic sold out to MS.

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[Opportunist]

All nice and fine, but that's not going to work either.

Now, I'm hardly an expert when it comes to flightsims, but I know a few people who are. Judging from their hardware, I'd say they invested enough to already buy their own little real plane, do you really think they would do it again, buy all the new hardware and throw their old junk out? Why should they? Or why should they rework their whole setup, often with anything but standard hardware (there are actually dedicated PCI cards for some of the hardware), just to fit it to some console?

So unless you publish a console that works perfectly with their setup, they won't buy it. And if you do create such a console, expect it to be a horrible money sink because nobody but the FS pilots would be interested in 99% of the features you have to include for FS, which cost quite a bit of money but don't offer anything to anyone outside the FS crowd.

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[drinkypoo]

Now, I'm hardly an expert when it comes to flightsims, but I know a few people who are. Judging from their hardware, I'd say they invested enough to already buy their own little real plane, do you really think they would do it again, buy all the new hardware and throw their old junk out? Why should they?

It's going to happen sooner or later. I personally :D think that most of these people are kind of crazy for spending so much on some of that stuff when their time and money would have been better spent learning how to make it themselves out of old scrap aircraft parts etc. I've seen what some people have done for next to nothing and it can be awe-inspiring. Actually, it's car-inspiring to me; I really want to make a rear-projection driving simulator with a piece of a car. I'm still working on too many other projects to allocate the funds right now, even though I think I can do pretty much the whole thing out of recycled parts and a small amount of stock material. I don't want to do the plane thing until I can develop a full 3DOR motion sim. Which sounds a lot more expensive.

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[LoadWB]

I was told that, for the time, SubLogic's flight sim was better than sliced bread. I believe Jet was theirs as well, and maybe a couple of others. (I think I still have some original SubLogic-branded sim software laying around in some boxes.)

Another flight sim product I remember was Gunship by Microprose. They manual says they spent time with the ship and pilots to develop what was the most realistic simulation of piloting the Apache AH-64A. I used to love that game on the C64.

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[bindlestiff]

> I was quite disappointed when SubLogic sold out to MS.

Amen. Bruce Artwick, where are you when we need you?

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[mrfrostee]

MS might have decided they're not interested in this kind of market. It does not push any sales of any other products of their line.

Traditionally, it has pushed DirectX, and their operating systems. It doesn't work well under Wine or in a virtual machine, so you need a "real" Windows install to run it.

Like some other people here have said, without MSFS, I have no longer have any need to boot into Windows.

Re:FS isn't an ordinary "game"

[iainl]

And I'd go back to the Xbox model, which actually worked amazingly well - just make a damned PC.

Sadly, the XBox model didn't work at all well. At no point in its entire life did Microsoft make anything other than a painful loss on the hardware, because while being all commodity stuff made for a swift development cycle, it left them without any control over the cost of components.

That their custom design for the 360 led to all sorts of painfully expensive repair bills is another matter, obviously, but in theory they make money on each box that doesn't die.

Well, they already sold Train Sim

[KDR_11k]

MS already sold off the Train Simulator long ago, judging by the amount of shelf space stores allocate to addons for it and the flight sim there's probably a pretty big market for stuff like that.

Then again from what I heard the Train Simulator was a flop in the US...

Re:Well, they already sold Train Sim

[KDR_11k]

It probably appeals to those who buy model train sets too. I think the common way to play it is as the driver though.

Re:Well, they already sold Train Sim

[Anonymous Coward]

My God. Riding an actual train is boring enough. People bring books for that. But actually seeking out a simulated bored-on-a-train experience, for your leisure time? Just get a damn book.

There are some of us who pay serious amounts of money to ride behind steam locos or on other unusual or famous trains.

However, I admit comparing the ride on an actual train to the passenger view in MSTS is rather like the difference between actually having sex and hearing your 56 year old spinster health class teacher say, "Some people claim this act is enjoyable."

(Of course, I'm a train-spotter *and* a slashdotter, so what would I know about sex? :-)

Re:Well, they already sold Train Sim

[qzak]

I know it sounds absolutely crazy. But train simulators are BIG business in Japan.

Re:Well, they already sold Train Sim

[LoadWB]

I rather enjoyed train simulator when I worked ISP support years ago. I do not know why, but it seemed to take the edge off of the work day.

I also fall into your later categories, but I believe that MS was working on Microsoft Sex Simulator before the economy fell out. Now with no one working, we might have a second Baby Boom since there is little else for people to do.

Re:Well, they already sold Train Sim

[Throtex]

Actually, I submit that *nothing* sounds absolutely crazy when you qualify it with "in Japan."

Re:Well, they already sold Train Sim

[Optic7]

"In Japan" almost became a big meme on Slashdot a couple of years ago. I liked it - don't know why it didn't persist like "in Soviet Russia" and "Welcome our overlords" did.

Re:Well, they already sold Train Sim

[obo]

I had to actually check to make sure that there was ever such a product as "Microsoft Train Simulator."

It's a niche market, obviously, but there have been a lot of 3rd party add-ons built for it over the years. I have a web site showing over 3000 locomotives: Locomotive Catalog.

Re:About time

[MichaelSmith]

Its terrible when people get layed off- but come on? Who ever fucking uses this thing?

I've got a copy, but then I am a bit of an aviation geek. The last time I used it was ten years ago. I was feeling a bit down and committed suicide. It made a nice crash.

Flight Gear

[stonedcat]

Now if we can just get people interested in Flight Gear...

"What you mean Microsoft didn't write the only flight simulator ever in existence?"

--Innocent Uninformed User

Re:Flight Gear

[KDR_11k]

X-Plane is on shelves right next to MSFS so they probably knew that MSFS isn't the only one out there :P.

ATTENTION SHOPPERS!

[Anonymous Coward]

ATTENTION SHOPPERS: PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE NECROTIC DOG PENIS. I REPEAT, PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE NECROTIC DOG PENIS CURRENTLY LOOMING OUTSIDE LOT 4. CONTINUE SHOPPING BUT PLEASE ENSURE YOU LEAVE VIA AN ALTERNATIVE EXIT AS WE ARE NO LONGER ABLE TO GUARANTEE YOUR SAFETY IN LOT 4, DUE TO THE NECROTIC DOG PENIS. FOR YOUR INFORMATION, LOTS 1, 2, 3, 5 AND 6 ARE CURRENTLY FREE OF BAYING NECROTIC DOG PENIS. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE NECROTIC DOG PENIS. THANK YOU.

Re:ATTENTION SHOPPERS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I miss a memo or something? Someone please explain why parent is +4 funny rather than -1 troll?

Re:ATTENTION SHOPPERS!

[justthinkit]

I'd settle for learning how he got it past the lameness filter.

Good memories...

[Lord Lode]

I've got nothing but good memories of FS version 5.0, played on a 386 computer. I've seen Flight Simulator X in action recently and it looked fantastic. This is one of the things of MS that are actually good, what a shame to see it go. If they contract FS out, that's not the same...

Re:Good memories...

[El Lobo]

This is one of the many things of MS that are actually good.

There. Fixed that for ya.

Re:Good memories...

[jamesh]

This is one of the many things of MS that are actually good.

There. Fixed that for ya.

Yes. Many people forget that some of their mice are actually pretty nice little devices. And their implementation of Solitaire is world class!

Re:Good memories...

[ThatGuyJon]

Their implementation of Solitaire was world class. Have you seen the butchered version of it in Vista?

Re:Good memories...

[Nimey]

I remember that FS5 was crashy and this wasn't really fixed with 5.0a. Then they came out with 5.1 and wanted you to buy it all over again. :-(

That said, I had good times with Flight Simulator 2 on my Apple //c back when, and 2004 is pretty neat too.

Microsoft's strategies

[troll8901]

I've been feeling for a while now that Microsoft should probably just drop everything and ...

I feel so too. In fact, I pray everyday for it to happen.

Unforturnately, the company's marketing machine is too good, from a small-business point of view.

They look really innovative.

• Windows NT (when workers used floppies)
• Active Directory (when workers rarely set passwords)
• SharePoint (when workers never even heard of blogs)
• VoIP (when full-functionality PABXs are not so common in small businesses)

Unless we can deliver hitmen to their business, legal and marketing departments...

Re:About time

[ushering05401]

The last time I used it was ten years ago. I was feeling a bit down and committed suicide. It made a nice crash.

I never hit that bug.

it was an outsourced product to begin with

[darkeye]

the MS Flight Simulator was initially the product of subLOGIC, and written by Bruce Artwick. It's just that MS chose to brand and market the product. After a while, they just 'took' the source code, and started to develop it in-house. subLOGIC struggled to release its own versions, but unfortunately they failed. (For this ugly business strategy, I chose not buy MS FS ever.)

Anyway, they might just chose to outsource again.

Re:it was an outsourced product to begin with

[DingerX]

They also 'took' Bruce Artwick to develop it for them.

Re:it was an outsourced product to begin with

[dfranks]

Your version of history is not quite correct. subLOGIC became an out of balance company with around 6 engineers and over 50 people on the "business" side. The two sides of the company were separated by a door, and there was an engineering staff member who (among other responsibilities) was guardian of the door. Bruce Artwick was the president of the engineering side, and Stu Moment was the president of the business side.
Tensions rose, and one day Stu Moment basically fired the entire engineering department (I never heard what the precipitating event was).
subLOGIC owned the rights to all products except Mac and PC flight simulator (this was pre-windows as I recall), but Bruce and/or MS owned the rights to MS Flight Simulator on the PC and MAC. Bruce then opened an office a few miles away (the creation of BAO) and since Stu had fired all of us, he hired us.
subLOGIC tried to take the code base for the Amiga, Atari, MSX, etc etc and form a viable product for the PC with limited market success. BAO produced several versions of Flight Simulator (plus Scenery and Aircraft Designer, Tower Simulator and a few other products) before Microsoft decided to move the development in house (or closer anyway). I was no longer with the company at this point, but my understanding was that they initially did not bring over most of the staff as they issued a "move to Redmond or here is the door" edict. Most of the staff decided to leave, but once MS tried their hand at development several of the key engineers were rehired and allowed to work remotely. At that point, FS source was 100% x86 assembler. While it was a high quality piece of code, it was extreemly complex and required talented developers to work with it.
I assume the original BAO people eventually left and went on to other projects, I have not heard from any of them in the last 10 years or so.
So, in summary: MS did not "take" the Flight Simulator source, it never belonged to subLOGIC. I assume that Bruce sold the remaining rights to MS at the breakup of BAO.

Dean

I still remember a question from the BAO pre-interview screening test, amazingly enough only 5 candidates (out of a very large number) ever got this right:

Write a small code fragment (language of your choice) to calculate the internal angle between adjacent sides given the number of sides of a regular polygon. As I recall, scenery and aircraft designed actually had code to do this calculation.

Re:it was an outsourced product to begin with

[el3mentary]

huh they don't know 180-360/n?

they interviewed some seriously stupid people.

Yes that'll work if you want a negative result.

Re:it was an outsourced product to begin with

[dfranks]

That is correct, the purpose of the test was not to evaluate a qualified candidate, just to identify a clearly unqualified candidate. Back then working on Flight Simulator was a "cool" thing to do so we received large numbers of resumes.
Candidates did not have to get all questions right, some were trick questions that someone with assembly language experience would get like:

write a function in assembly language that given an 8 bit pseudo angle (0=0 degrees, 256 = 360 degrees) that returns a 16 bit sin and cos value for the angle and is as processor efficient as possible.

Re:it was an outsourced product to begin with

[UltraOne]

Table lookup FTW!

Pregenerate the tables for each possible angle and code them as 512 byte data blocks at [sin table base address] and [cos table base address]

load register 3 with pseudo-angle
shift register 3 left ; i.e. multiply by 2 since sine and cosine results are 2 bytes long
load register 1 from [sin table base address], (register 3 value); this is the sine
load register 2 from [cos table base address], (register 3 value); this is the cosine

Last two instructions use the addressing mode that adds a register value to an absolute address to determine the final address.

Re:it was an outsourced product to begin with

[dfranks]

That would be correct. Your solution could be optimized slightly by using a table that it 256+64 entries long and using the 90 deg phase difference between sine and cosine rather than having 2 256 entry tables (but the question didn't say anything about memory usage).

Re:it was an outsourced product to begin with

[EyeSavant]

huh they don't know 180-360/n?

they interviewed some seriously stupid people.

Yes that'll work if you want a negative result.

Huh? you need to work on your operator precidence.
Division before subtraction.

3 sides
180 - 360/3 = 180 -120 = 60

4 sides
180 - 360/4 = 180 - 90 = 90

5 sides
180 - 360/5 = 180 -72 = 108

6 sides
180 - 360/6 = 180 - 60 = 120

The formula is based on the fact that the external angles add up to 360 degrees, and the internal angle is 180 - the external angle.
Clearly the formula goes wrong for n=1 or n=2, but those are not valid shapes anyway.

Disconserting.

[Donovon]

This begs to wonder what precisely they are planning to do with all that underutilized IP they are amassing...

--D

Inflight recorder results

[Anonymous Coward]

"Altitude is 65530 feet and climbing, 65534, 65535, oh fu-!"

Yes, this one does as well

[WindBourne]

In a short bit, they will "decide" to re-do the team. And they will be hired in India or China with MAYBE one or two ppl from the old team. If these coders were smart, they would approach a VC person NOW, about doing another game.

Re:Yes, this one does as well

[kbrasee]

India's not as cheap as it used to be.

Re:Yes, this one does as well

[Muad'Dave]

Viet Cong? Visual C? Venture Capitalist? Victoria Cross? Vatican City? 8-)

Twenty-seven years?

[vrmlguy]

I graduated from college in 1978 and moved to Silicon Valley. In a short time, I owned an Apple II, an Advent VideoBeam projection TV, and a copy of Bruce Artwick's original Flight Simulator. With a nominal 64" screen, it seemed as immersive as any commercial flight simulator of that time (even if it was low-res black-and-white wireframe). And when you bought it, you got a second floppy with the source code! I'm saddened to see the franchise end after 30+ years. Yes, I know that they'll probably farm it out, but it's lost its continuity.

Hey, you kids, get off my tarmac!

Airbus uses MSFS!

[jernejk]

IIRC, Airbus used a customized version of MSFS as an aid for A380 testing. It was used to show exact real-time airplane position, pitch, roll and yaw during testing.

Well I guess the Flight team

[JohnnyGTO]

must not be H-1B visa holders.

MSFS was the original PC compatibility test

[Terje Mathisen]

For the first 2-3 years of PC history, the original Microsoft Flight Simulator was _the_ PC compatibility test:

If a machine could run MSFC, then it would also run retty much every other PcDos application on the market.

The first stumble came in 1984 with the PCAT, since the 6 MHz 286 cpu in this box meant that all the carefully tuned sw timing loops ran too fast and the simulator ran about twice as fast as it should.

Terje

Re:MSFS was the original PC compatibility test

[LWATCDR]

Yep the gold standard was back in the day.
Could it run MFS and Lotus 123.
If you ran those it was PC compatible.

Re:About time

[Travelsonic]

[quote[ Its terrible when people get layed off- but come on? Who ever fucking uses this thing? [/quote] Ignorant comment of the week anybody? A lot of people use it, not that you'd understand.

Not surprising

[drsquare]

The only fun parts are taking off and landing, everything in between is sheer tedium.

Re:Not surprising

[NeverVotedBush]

Not for the 9/11 hijackers. They used Microsoft Flight Simulator to practice navigating by landmarks and flying the jets to their targets.

The hijackers didn't care about takeoffs or landings and instead cared only about the flying. It's what raised suspicions at The Airmen in Norman, OK and caused them to contact the FBI.

If they could have only been put in contact with the CIA who knew that bin Laden was planning an attack using airliners, 9/11 could possibly have been prevented. But that's a completely different thread... (see also the August 6 2001 PDB)

666 add-ons?!

[chaboud]

I think we know why that happened. Slashdot should change the Gates image from borg-eyes to horns.

Re:I, for one, support Microsoft on this move.

[EvanED]

b) FlightGear, Xplane etc.

X-plane is a worthy competitor to MSFS, but Flightgear isn't even close.

The FlightGear flight simulator project

[Anonymous Coward]

"The FlightGear flight simulator project is an open-source, multi-platform, cooperative flight simulator development project. Source code for the entire project is available and licensed under the GNU General Public License.

The goal of the FlightGear project is to create a sophisticated flight simulator framework for use in research or academic environments, for the development and pursuit of other interesting flight simulation ideas, and as an end-user application. We are developing a sophisticated, open simulation framework that can be expanded and improved upon by anyone interested in contributing.

There are many exciting possibilities for an open, free flight sim. We hope that this project will be interesting and useful to many people in many areas. "
http://flightgear.org/

Re:The FlightGear flight simulator project

[RazorSharp]

I don't know why you got modded down. Sure, you're shamelessly plugging an app, but it's pretty relevant to the article. I think that a flight simulator is something that should be open source and free. It's a perfect open source project because all the "features" are simulations of reality, so everyone working on the project will have a clear criteria. You can make an open source Halo clone but video games are so temporal compared to simulators. The time and effort put into an open source FPS would be a waste, as gamers would play it and then be done. Simulators are used for training, enthusiasts, and education. That's the type of program that should be open source rather than kept in check by Microsoft.

non-free

[mike_sucks]

I guess that's what happens when you buy proprietary software - you're screwed if the vendor pulls the plug on you.

/Mike

Re:non-free

[gobbligook]

How are you screwed in this case? Even though MS pulled the plug on the team, that doesn't mean that your existing copy of FS is useless.

It just means that the next release may/may not happen, and that if it does, it is likely going to be contracted out to another developer house.

Re:I prefer X-Plane.. But no good aussie maps :(

[auzy]

I tend to agree.. The flight models on X-plane tend to be a lot better, but unfortunately, its plugin list is quite limited, and so is its graphics capabilities apparently :(

Also, in Australia at least, X-plane unfortunately doesn't seem to have anything to compete against Orbx's "Full Terrain X" except Auspak (which doesn't go far enough in my opinion for VFR flight). Its a pity, but I hope X-plane eventually does get a lot better, because it not only runs a lot smoother then FSX, but if you buy a copy, it runs on OSX, Linux and windows!