Honestly, i have my hands full with flight sims. BMS, DCS, ROF, OFF, etc. i never had any intention of buying Flight. But I would have sprung for a full price update of FSX. Microsoft really is a company with serious management issues. First you let go everyone from FSX. That was disrespecful. Who cares if FSX loses a few bucks, or barely breaks even. It was an important product in terms of prestige. And then they launch Flight? And then kill it? Too many bean counters with ZERO passion running MS.

Compare these bozos to ED, or the VOLUNTEERS over at BMS. Night and day.

Very nicely put.
An App Store of sorts would have been ideal, with a share for both the devs and MS, but they got greedy.

I suspect greed was on both sides (mostly on MS's side, but some of it on the 3PP side). The 3PP were initially offered the opportunity to participate. From their own mouths (numerous sources), they stated they were less than enthusiastic about the deal and decided not to play along. MS eventually got fed up with them and decided to go it alone (and it was probably a convenient decision because they thought it would end up with more profit for them). How would this have progressed if the 3PPs had been enthusiastic about Flight? It was simply an economy of scales proposition and the 3PPs couldn't see that.

I actually agree with Microsofts general decision to change directions with Aces/MSFS. It simply wasn't working. If the business-unit can't turn profit, then it needs to change. That's what businesses do. What I disagree with is the direction they took with flight.

At this point though, MS will never be successful in flight sims again. They're too big, and too stubborn. They can't innovate, and that's what needs to happen.

That said, passionate developers who do it for the love of the hobby are a wonderful thing for all of us. I'm glad we have them.

But they aren't the future of this hobby. A viable business model must emerge to save sims. "Boxed software", sold for $60 along side other casual titles simply doesn't work for flight sims. Our product is one that will wind up costing the end user $200 for a simulation "operating system", populated by a third party like aerosoft, A2A, and Carenado.

This is because there is no one company out there in this little niche of entertainment software large enough to bring a pure retail sim environment to market. ED needs to rely on military contracts to keep writing paychecks, A2A doesn't have the staff to develop a robust ground-up sim environment, and Laminar still can't get out from under Steve Austins bull-headed pride.

Got it in one. I am disappointed that Flight has closed. It could have been so good but as others have said it failed because its target audience was kept small by limited scenery and planes. Imagine a sim as huge as FSX but playing as smoothly as Flight with everything maxed out and not even breaking sweat and we would have the dream sim.

We need a new FSX using the code from Flight as much as we need 777 to make a new WW2 combat sim.

I can't say I am surprised Flight had some good points but was too bogged down with arcade stuff to really make it worth our time.
I really hope someone brings out another sim I am not asking for the world but many Europe or Europe and then add on packs for the USA ect or visa verse with some nice GA's some fun stuff like a Lightning a few airliners is that really too much to ask for?

I've heard otherwise. Can you substantiate, with facts and sources, that ACES was cut because FSX was unprofitable?

The fundamental proble with flight was simplly horribly conflicting gameplay and DLC. None of the DLC released between initial release and the Alaska pack release was really usable. For a game with gameplay centred on exploring and cargo/passenger hauling all those cockpitless warbirds made no sense.

I actually enjoyed a lot of the gameplay, and quite liked the original aircraft lineup. But I didn't buy any DLC after launch until the Alaska pack(at some point I'll buy the DLX Carbon Cub), I did buy most of the launch DLC (skipped the P-51D) though.

Less warbirds and more cargo haulers could have saved Flight. Hell, a simple Beaver or Otter was all that was really needed as it would have allowed certain missions which are essentially impossible currently due to payload limits to be completed.

2 things may have made Flight an enjoyable experience for me...

1. More planes and scenery.
2. Something like "Cargo pilot" or "FSPassengers" built into the vanilla game. I'd be much more willing to explore places in the game if I'm doing it in the context of managing a cargo company or airline.

Flying through hoops or exploring a dead Hawaii in a plane that is barely faster than my car? Well they know where they can shove that.

Not sure if anyone saw the interesting recent comments from Aerosoft's Mathijs Kok about Flight on the AVSIM interview:
AVSIM An Interview With Aerosoft Mathijs Kok

Excerpt of those comments here:

Q: Finally....your views on the Munich Conference, the demise of MS Flight....and your views on the future of the Hobby?

Let’s start with FLIGHT.

The moment we understood what it would be we told each other that it would not work, that Microsoft just did not understand the kind of customer that pays our bills. There were promising parts, but it was released as a brain dead simulator. Aircraft without cockpits? What were they thinking? Strangely enough we did like it, we hoped it would bring in a new generation of simmers and we hoped Microsoft would see the light. We told them we spoke to them, they spoke to us, but as so often the people working on the project at Microsoft had little say.

The problem with Microsoft is the company itself at this moment. It seems to lack direction in any field expect the Operating Systems. They start and stop projects seemingly without reason, we worked a lot for them but they did not prove to be a very reliable partner.

Just two weeks before FLIGHT was cancelled they were talking to us about new content.

Interesting to see that 2 weeks before cancelling the project, they were considering involving 3rd Party Developers...