Might wanna be sitting down for this one...

**bismarck13** · January 25th, 2009, 15:30

$14,000,000 in sales for FSX? There are guys on campus there (rarefied air) that probably get a bonus bigger than that.

Well, that explains it completely. Considering that Halo 3 sold $300 Million in its first week, I would have to rate FSX as a dismal failure. If I was M$ I would pull the plug on it too. Consoles are where its at now. And despite what you all will say, the small number of diehard FSers at this site (and elsewhere) is really not that attractive to big outfits like Ubi-screwed and Microshaft. The biggest selling PC games on the market now are generally also console games. I looked for a new PC game for my nephew at Xmas and was surprised by the small number of titles to choose from, and there was nothing at all that would have interested me. I think the PC game industry in general is headed right down the tubes and "Aces" is just one of the casualties.

**CathyH** · January 25th, 2009, 21:06

VSF a vehicle simulator by The Author of Virtual Sailor is acvailable for beta download from hangsim.com. It feature palens, ships, and spaceshiop, the4r will be lots of reqasonable hobbyist freewae and paywae addons and combat mode. Not as good as FS, but with tht, FS9 ansd FSX I think we can manage, then ther4 is X-plane and that open source Flightsin (flightgera?):amen:

**Nick C** · January 25th, 2009, 23:43

Paul, this comment niggles me:

It will likely be a long road and may not look quite the same.

Sorry to start picking at comments.

**Ridge** · January 26th, 2009, 01:00

Originally Posted by Gibbage

Sorry. I take this comment a little personally. I have never seen a more competent team ever in my life. A LOT of the people there had there pilots license and 10-25 years of experience. I dont know how more competent you could get for a flight sim team.

I thought the same at first, Gibbage...I dont think he is saying Aces is/was incompetent, just not to give the work to a 3rd party group that is incompetent...

**Bjoern** · January 26th, 2009, 02:51

Originally Posted by Gibbage

Sorry. I take this comment a little personally. I have never seen a more competent team ever in my life. A LOT of the people there had there pilots license and 10-25 years of experience. I dont know how more competent you could get for a flight sim team.

It wasn't meant to be a hit at ACES.

That section of my quoted comment was referring to a post someone made, in which he expressed the fear that MSFS development could be outsourced to a development team in the eastern hemisphere.
I for myself think that none of the young, startup deveopment teams in that part of the earth can cope with developing a flight simulator. I'm not all against new blood in the industry, but without mentors like the guys and gals from ACES, they won't go far. Sure, they could try, but the expectations for a new civil flightsimulator are high...very high. Especially if Microsoft is the publisher...

***Francois*** · January 26th, 2009, 02:53

Originally Posted by Gibbage

Sorry. I take this comment a little personally. I have never seen a more competent team ever in my life. A LOT of the people there had there pilots license and 10-25 years of experience. I dont know how more competent you could get for a flight sim team.

I agree, Gibbage. That remark was uncalled for, unjust, rude and above all: factual incorrect.

harleyman · January 26th, 2009, 03:46

Originally Posted by Francois

I agree, Gibbage. That remark was uncalled for, unjust, rude and above all: factual incorrect.

It does read a little funny......

I do not believe that he was meaning that the past ACES team was incompontent at all..That if it were to be outsorced ,to please do it with a compontent team as ACES was...

I believe he understands the point behind these threads is to let the ACES members know that they are in our thoughts and we are thanking them for all the wonderful work they have put into this and other simes....

Correct me if I'm wrong please Bjoern..

**CBris** · January 26th, 2009, 04:44

Originally Posted by crashaz

I did look up last night that in 2007 FSX sold 280K copies... @ $50/copy that is $14 million.

Originally Posted by bismarck13

Hmmm
<hr style="color: rgb(64, 64, 80); background-color: rgb(64, 64, 80);" size="1"> Quote:
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td style="border: 1px inset ;" class="alt2"> $14,000,000 in sales for FSX? There are guys on campus there (rarefied air) that probably get a bonus bigger than that. </td> </tr> </tbody></table>
Well, that explains it completely. Considering that Halo 3 sold $300 Million in its first week, I would have to rate FSX as a dismal failure. If I was M$ I would pull the plug on it too. Consoles are where its at now. And despite what you all will say, the small number of diehard FSers at this site (and elsewhere) is really not that attractive to big outfits like...

There is a wonderful saying in German, and I am pretty sure the sentiments count in any language:

"Kleinvieh macht auch Mist"

A suitable Anglic translation would be "Even small animals make manure"

(This next bit can be ignored as [rant] )To jettison ANY department that makes money is about as sensible as... hmmm... I can't think of anything nonsensical to compare MS with here

If FS made a plus, then axing it is stupid. And wailing about shareholder pressure even more so. It's as ridiculous as listening to reports of "Reduced Profits" on the news. Even "Reduced Profits" are still profits.

Anyway... [/rant off]

:whistle: :wave:

I am still looking forward to enjoying what life FSX will have for the next year or ten. Nothing has really changed for this "Bunch of grumpy old men", we're still able to sim and spend our money on some great addons, even in the coming years.

The more I look at it, the more I see a bright sim future.

**SkippyBing** · January 26th, 2009, 07:00

To jettison ANY department that makes money is about as sensible as... hmmm... I can't think of anything nonsensical to compare MS with here

That's taking a very blinkered view.
As an example lets say ACES and whoever developed Halo 3 were both costing the same in R&D, wages etc. etc. Would it make more sense to continue funding both when one is making several orders of magnitude more than the other, or close down the under performing department to free up resources for the better performing one?
The figures we should be comparing are return on investment, which would probably be a lot harder to come by.
As for reduced profit still being profit, it is true, but if the management aren't seen to be doing anything to reverse the reduction in that trend would you still invest in that company. To put it another way, if your bank said that this year the interest on your savings is being reduced from 5% to 2% would you say, 'well I'm getting reduced return on my money, but it's still a return', or look for a better bank?

SDFlyer · January 26th, 2009, 08:45

What of this from the PR department of MS? Just a ploy to keep us thinking and buying MS? Seems to me more like a

Mark

**Bjoern** · January 26th, 2009, 09:01

Originally Posted by harleyman

That if it were to be outsorced ,to please do it with a compontent team as ACES was...

Spot-on, Mason!

If anyone cares: Thread at SimHQ
You will notice the odd few thoughts and fears about outsourcing, which directly influenced my reply.

I hope it's clear enough now.

**Lionheart** · January 26th, 2009, 09:09

I think this is a good reason to see why huge corporations like MS do not always see how a gaming studio see's.

You have to know what the people want, and I think brass at mega-corporations become unable to see what the common public see's. If they are calling the shots, its like taking orders on driving directions from people that are blind.

A studio should have the ability to make its own decisions to a major degree when concerning its product lines.

With MS, they restricted the work force at Aces, kept their budgets extremely low, and launched FSX too soon. MS did this, not Aces. If I were at MS, I would have had a small army of devs in there working on FS.

The more I think about it, with the vista (cough cough) fiasco, the CEO saying how it was such a succesful (cough) product, they shouldnt be laying off the employees at MS. They were all being told what to do. I say lay off the brass.. Put them on the street for making dumb decisions, not the army they commanded. Get some people in there that have common sense, that have eyes and can see, ears and can hear...

Just more of my two cents.. (all these two cents.. where do they come from?

).

Bill

**SkippyBing** · January 26th, 2009, 09:21

What of this from the PR department of MS? Just a ploy to keep us thinking and buying MS? Seems to me more like a

I think at this stage anything the MS PR department puts out is standard 'we closed that department but are keeping the option of opening it sometime in the future if we want to'. I honestly don't think MS have thought as deeply about this as people on the FS forums think they have.
It was a pure business decision, they think the money that would have been spent on ACES could be more profitable somewhere else. They didn't think 'flight simulation is a market that leads to sales of OS and hardware with a thriving 3rd party community which we want to come back to at some point but in the short term we're going to sacrifice to improve profitability', heck I wouldn't be surprised if the person who made the decision didn't even know what ACES did.
As I think we've covered somewhere else on here, flight simulation isn't as big a market as we like to think, sure there're plenty of web forums, magazines, add-on developers etc. but I think that indicates an enthusiastic market rather than a big one and MS only get the sales of FS out of it so ultimately that's all they're going to take into consideration.

***wombat666*** · January 26th, 2009, 10:23

Originally Posted by SkippyBing

That's taking a very blinkered view.
As an example lets say ACES and whoever developed Halo 3 were both costing the same in R&D, wages etc. etc. Would it make more sense to continue funding both when one is making several orders of magnitude more than the other, or close down the under performing department to free up resources for the better performing one?
The figures we should be comparing are return on investment, which would probably be a lot harder to come by.

Under performing is not really an accurate description, under selling might be closer compared to the sales of all of the 'Blood and Guts' games ( an oxymoron indeed!) that seem to be so popular.
Another 2c worth.

MM · January 26th, 2009, 10:32

With regard to the discussion on Microsoft's maximizing profitability, here is a great line from the SimHQ forum discussion (Bjoern's link), by No601_Swallow:

After all, what are computers for if not for simulating things? Surely not spreadsheets?!!

**SkippyBing** · January 26th, 2009, 10:59

Wombat, you're right probably a better description, although from an accountants point of view looking at input and output it probably looks like the same thing.

**Snuffy** · January 26th, 2009, 11:30

Originally Posted by wombat666

Under performing is not really an accurate description, under selling might be closer compared to the sales of all of the 'Blood and Guts' games ( an oxymoron indeed!) that seem to be so popular.
Another 2c worth.

This is also a viable argument for an ongoing combat flight sim. The human race is a blood thristy bunch ...

**PhilTaylor** · January 26th, 2009, 14:39

Originally Posted by SkippyBing

That's taking a very blinkered view.
As an example lets say ACES and whoever developed Halo 3 were both costing the same in R&D, wages etc. etc. Would it make more sense to continue funding both when one is making several orders of magnitude more than the other, or close down the under performing department to free up resources for the better performing one?
The figures we should be comparing are return on investment, which would probably be a lot harder to come by.
As for reduced profit still being profit, it is true, but if the management aren't seen to be doing anything to reverse the reduction in that trend would you still invest in that company. To put it another way, if your bank said that this year the interest on your savings is being reduced from 5% to 2% would you say, 'well I'm getting reduced return on my money, but it's still a return', or look for a better bank?

I cover some of my thinking around what I know about this decision and what influenced it at a new post at:
http://www.futuregpu.org.

I will post again as I learn more.

harleyman · January 26th, 2009, 14:53

Thank you Phil...A very intresting read.......

And to hear a final about TS2 is disheartning at best....:help:

**jdhaenens** · January 26th, 2009, 15:11

...so, I don't know how they count severance, if any, but let's say that that's amortized over the next three months...this still doesn't have any effect (other than publicity) for next quarters' advice cycle. Meanwhile, FSX is still selling without the headcount to charge off against it after the cycle, and the code is getting older and older.

All because they stubbornly refuse to be beaten by Apple (Zune vs IPOD) in Apple's own back yard. "Market weakness in the entertainment sector (Zune) was made up from MGS profits".

I can't even see that this makes any business sense at all. You've gotten closer to locking yourself into a high risk...mediocre reward scenario with the Zune platform, but killed off a proven quantity.

Don't get me wrong, you can still sell FSX for another couple, maybe 3 years without the headcount, but the chances of being able to recover an improved successor are practically nill. I don't think I will have switched to served games by then.

FSX has way too many online multiplayer options for Live to catch on, and I'll bet within the next year, there will be an FS Host that will handle all the FSX specific connections.

Things that make you go ...Hmmmmm.

***srgalahad*** · January 26th, 2009, 15:13

Is he pointing to the door, or just not sure which finger to use?

**heywooood** · January 26th, 2009, 15:34

Originally Posted by PhilTaylor

I cover some of my thinking around what I know about this decision and what influenced it at a new post at:
http://www.futuregpu.org.

I will post again as I learn more.

Thanks for the insight Phil...the TS2 news is a downer - as a footnote to all those people being let go at once that is.

The company I work for was just bought out last month and now the auditors are flying around like wasps - sure hope I dont get stung by 'em.

I think we will all be tested before this particular piece of history is behind us.

**Ridge** · January 26th, 2009, 15:34

Looks to me like he is poppin a cap in the butt of Aces...

**Lionheart** · January 26th, 2009, 15:41

Originally Posted by srgalahad

Is he pointing to the door, or just not sure which finger to use?

lolol....

um...... Where are his eyebrows??

**rhumbaflappy** · January 26th, 2009, 16:16

Originally Posted by crashaz

I did look up last night that in 2007 FSX sold 280K copies... @ $50/copy that is $14 million.

I did not give them that figure though. Wanted to ask what the former ACES team thought. These guys I talked to would not go without key members of the team.

I think Phil Taylor mentions over 1 million sold worldwide... but I don't know if this includes what's sitting on store shelves.

Dick