Looks like M$ have let their ACES Studio go down the plughole.
So no FS11, or trainsim, at least in the near future.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21981

Sad day

SD

This is probably related to the press release from yesterday saying that Microsoft is laying off 5,000 employees over the next 18 months.

Bad news for sure.

Perhaps for pure flight sims, but not for combat flight sims. If more flight sim makers find ways to adapt to the changing flight sim market then we should continue to be okay in our niche. DCS is finding a way to market to the military while allowing us to benefit, kind of like eSim with their Steel Beasts. Third Wire is continuing to make entertaining flight sims in their own way. ArmA also benefits from the military market while sending the goods to us. These examples give me hope for flight sims and combat sims in general.

Hope? Aerial combat simulation is nearly a Russian monopoly now. They use some of the worst copy protection in the world, and none of the customers have any choice in the matter but to accept or abstain. There are so few simulator developers that the few who exist can do whatever they want, and the customers must either enjoy it or bug out altogether. That is not what I call hope.

As I mentioned in another thread about this, I won't believe MSFS is shut down completely unless I hear it straight from MS.

They don't LOSE money on MSFS. Sure they're not making billions like with Windows, Exchange, Office, etc, but they DO make a profit.

I read a few years ago that MSFS was the biggest selling piece of entertainment software of all time (due to it's long history).

I could easily see longer intervals between releases, maybe even much longer, but an outright shutdown of the product name?

Nah, can't see it unless FSX sales REALLY took a nosedive compared to prior versions...

I really do have trouble believing they will shut down something that I remember as far back as the mid-80s. It's still popular and with such longevity - I just can't see it.

Really when it comes down to it I'm foreseeing much longer release intervals - and not because of budget tightening.

It'd be really easy (relatively speaking) to design a flightsim right now that'd require a supercomputer to run it.

Just how far beyond FSX can you go right now without creating a "slideshow" for most users - or even those with the best rigs on the planet for that matter?

But hear this - the minute any bigtime hardware advances come along (I'm talking revolutionary, not evolutionary) there'll be people saying "Holy crap, imagine what we could DO with this".

I fully believe Microsoft will be one of those "people".

But even without revolutionary hardware advances, the evolutionary process will still go on.

We might see 8 year product intervals in terms of MSFS in that case, that's entirely possible.

But until they actually lose money on an iteration or two of the product I can't see them outright dumping it. Not after all these years, and certainly not as long as it's actually making any profit whatsoever...

I don't know, I can see MS dumping the FS series.

While it didn't loose money, it didn't seem to be a big money maker. Why use money and resources on making FS12 when you can put that money in to Halo 4, Gears of War 3, and the next Zune to promote Microsoft market place?

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see MS keep the series going. I've logged a ton of hours in FS9, but at the same time I can't help but be drawn back to the days when combat sim studio's were shutting down left, right and center.

I had forgotten something in my previous response - something that I just hadn't considered. Supposedly FS was a passion of Bill Gates. He really felt strongly about that product way back in the beginning. But Bill's not there anymore, is he? So yeah, it's gone.

On another note, there is X-plane for all civi types. Maybe a lot more resources will now be thrown at that by the mod, etc community.