This is TERRIBLE NEWS!

The entire ACES Staff got axed? wtf?

I'm utterly speechless.

Most if not all yep.

*Being sarcastic*They will probably outsource it to India for the next round, based on how they imported literally thousands of migrant workers over the past few years. Redmond turned into 'little Delhi'

Not good news for the Flight Sim franchise. I hope this doesn't spell the end of Flight Simulator.

Very sad news indeed. I know some of those folks, and I wish them all the best in finding new prospects. As a developer for the franchise, I can only hope that this is at worst a hiatus with better things to come in the future.

To be honest through, it's nice not to have to worry about compatibility going forward, at least for awhile:) I do hope that ESP continues to be supported, as this is/was the new direction for many of us, particularly with military training applications on the table.

--Jon

A LOT of work in the games industry is being outsourced to China or India right now. At the end of the day, they need to make a living too, but for western developers it sucks.

But then that's capitalism.

I hope that there will be an Aces type team to develop the product in the future even if it is under the X-Plane monnikor or whatever.

I highly doubt that the FS series has been a money loser for Microsoft. Since the title has been around almost as long as Microsoft has been around it is sad to see it going.

I agree with Tom (see my other post)

Though it is regarded as a "game", I cannot see M$ dropping Flight Simulator, based on it's history, and the time that it has been out. Plus simmer are more or less used to a new release every few years, and M$ would know that the simmers would expect it.

Added to the fact that X-Plane is the only alternative, and weighing up the graphics, and ease of play in FS, I think we are all safe for the future.

Cheers

Andrew.