Airbus Post on Aerosoft

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Reading this post by MK:
https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F170683-what-msfs-airbus-to-do-next%2F

I just feel there is lot wrong with it, snipes at other dev’s and a whole lot of internal financial incentives we do not need to know about?

Things in it that offend me are:

  • Add more versions (engines etc) of the A330.
  • Add the Neo version of the A330.

While interesting for the high end simmers, commercially this is not very interesting because while for P3D all customers were ‘high-end’ simmers, the same is most certainly not true for the current customer base. To put it bluntly, adding different engine options for the A330 simply will only add a few percentages in sales (just as it did for P3D btw). The Neo is slightly more attractive, but still marginally.

So High end simmers are just not worth it in MSFS. This is not first time MK has said things like this, and I feel Like he trying to control and convince the MSFS Audience that high end simming is trash in the way he dismisses it, and says things like “Simulate the Aircraft, not the Job of a Pilot” The Job of the pilot depends on the plane, A plane that starts with all fuel pumps off is a joke!

The obvious choice. Now to be clear we do not consider Fenix etc to be an important factor. Not only because they obviously aim for a different kind of product (they want to simulate the aircraft, we want to simulate the job of being a pilot), but mainly because they do not make a MSFS product, but just a software bridge between existing software and the sim.

Really, its just a bridge, oh so easy right! Just a bridge! lol that’s wrong IMHO and could of been worded so differently. Getting all that to talk to MSFS and work is monumental task still.

This makes sales on Marketplace impossible. As that is simply the biggest sales channel (with a large margin), disregarding that is simply not a good idea for us. I am sure many people here will say I am out of my mind, but I got sales reports, right? My job is to produce products that make money and the market is simply totally different.

Who cares about this as a customer? You are basically telling us we buy dumbed down products, you are also alluding to the fact XBOX players dont want more than just the basics and this is not first time he has alluded to this kind of stuff.

However, what our friends of at FBW are doing is kick-■■■ stuff for the A320. Now we have different ideas, do not use Javascript and HTML (that have some serious drawbacks in performance) and again simply want to do a different project focused on the crew where the aircraft is just the tool.

This is just terrible IMHO, why even go there with FBW who I am sorry are producing better products for free. I see no issues with the A320, it will have an FPS hit as it is actually simulating a real aircraft, just as is the case in any SIM. This to me is a very snide and sly attack on FBW to try and get people to dislike it and buy their no doubt garbage dumbed down version! Again highlighting or laying the road to blame XBOX.

  • A350

Forget it. There is simply no way anybody can get access to the tables needed to make a serious A350. While you can get those for the older Airbusses, even pilots do not have access to these tables and the only way to recreate them would be to experiment with a real aircraft. We got a lot of pilot friends, but they are simply not able to do 10 ascends to FL 200 with different engine settings and then repeat the same for a few different weights. The data is simply not there.

Absolute lies ask Flight Factor, Watch real A350 Pilots fly the A350 in X-Plane on you tube… This is a such a bs statement!

  • A380

Commercially that aircraft is about as interesting to us as it is for airlines.

Well, well, again put that Aircraft down because FBW are making it and you cant make one as good or any money off it.

I honestly think this is an awful and disingenuous post across the board and is self serving beyond anything I have ever seen. MK is going to drive Aerosoft into the ground IMHO.

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Pretty much agree with you on all this - especially the hidden (or perhaps not so hidden) prejudice and assumptions about people and simming. I do see the need for commerciality - at the end of the day, Aerosfot does need to make money - but it does seem that they are struggling to work out what their market is and what their place in that market is. In the meantime, posts like this do them no favours with any of the potential markets.

There is a lot in here that is suggesting a “design philiosophy” for them, but they need to stop trying to convince people that others are wrong and start more convincing people of the advantages of their approach.

The good news is that the market IS much bigger than it was and the “high end” market (don’t even like that term) certainly hans’t got smaller. Other devs are seeing the potential in that - ie attract newer simmers into that end of the market rather than shifting focus away from it.

There is form here, with the various comments about the level of support Aerosoft needed to put in place around the CRJ and then the implications for the Twin Otter - and I thnk they called this wrong then and I think they are calling it wrong now. If they really believe in this direction for them, that’s entirely their right - but do it for the positives and not the negatives, don’t try to belittle others (devs and simmers) in the process and be honest.

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Aerosoft made it on my “do not buy/support” list a few weeks ago. This reassures me of that decision.

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We rarely agree and I am glad we do on some of this. There is a lot of passive aggressive hints in his post towards to other dev’s and it is wrong. He also fuels the “MSFS has been dumbed down for XBOX” argument quite a bit, and I feel he wants that, what he wants is for everyone to shut up and agree with him…ok, but going after other dev’s and calling them friends too, is not cool!.

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Yep! And he knows fine well he was treading very close to some lines with the final comment:

If you like to comment, please stay constructive. Moderation will be murderous in this topic.

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Well I did take the opportunity to think out loud with Aerosoft in that post yet at the same time I frowned upon such ‘open heartedness’, or let’s just call it that.

I think they lack ambition over there. Like I told 'm too: you have this beautiful new platform at your disposal and you seem to shy away from it. Sure, in the old days you could develop an Airbus A320 next to three other A320’s as they all sucked differently untill FSLabs came along. But nowadays you see so much energy at young/new developers and you see synergy with Asobo (I love reading messages in between Fenix and Asobo, complimenting each other all the time). This is a new generation of developers and they want to make beautiful products in this platform that can support it. I saw MK mentioning a couple of times that Aerosoft isn’t a small developer anymore but now employ 75 programmers. Well, you better hold on to them and offer them room for their talent and passion because these millennials want to be proud with their products, they need to be valuable and original and awesome. They’re not going to sit behind computers and make a sort-of’ish good’ish ‘tools to simulate a pilots job’. They want to be freaking proud on what they make. You better catch on to that and then look again at your sales sheets.

I sometimes (often) feel that it’s not so much business philosophy but just …a generation thing. Sorry for that MK. :wink:

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My first experience with an Aerosoft purchase was the CRJ and I think it will be my last, not that I don’t like the CRJ, but I just found their support forum the most unwelcoming experience I have ever had in a support forum and that was just reading it, I never posted anything.

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I’m wondering why anyone cares what other people think? I know what I like to fly, and when developers build something I want to fly I’ll buy it. The world is full of people. I have no issue with people saying what they like. If Aerosoft doesn’t want to develop planes I want to fly, why should I care?

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Its a greed thing IMHO. I think MK has seen you can make money Hand over fist from this platform with pretty much anything, and whilst he does not want to admit he is happy to put out sub par products that’s what he wants to do and he wants nobody to question it so he is very undercover trying to sow seeds in peoples heads, and I am sorry but I see straight through it.

A good example of the generation thing is when Matt from WT tells it how it is with the new technologies to older dev’s who dont want to transition, plenty of examples of that around on this forum and others.

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Well it’s kind of the nature of a forum I guess. People have opinions.

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It makes sense though. You see all these stupid “aircraft” with stolen avionics and trash systems in multiplayer all the time. Often flown by casual gamers who got the game for free with their Game Pass subscription and buys a fairly cheap plane that looks cool.

Not to mention the Xbox players that bounce all over the St Barts runway when they try to land their cool aircraft in third person with their gamepad.

Developers like Bredok3D and MScenery make good money from releasing tons of really bad aircraft that people with no standards buy. Why put a lot of effort into one aircraft when you make less money that way?

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No need for that. There are plenty of PC players doing the same.

All comes down to whether MK/Aerosoft have “standards” too then. If he’s happy to look in the mirro in the morning, then it’s up to him.

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That is fine, if that is what he wants to do. But what he has done is take swipes at other dev’s, and put down their way of doing things. He is trying to ensure that there is only one market and he controls it.

He has a whole raft of eager followers over there who he knows he can blindside with his BS and thus ensure future customers. If he just said we want to make mediocre planes as we feel that is best for us, then ok! but saying FBW will have performance issues, A350 is un-obtainable, the A380 is boring is just wrong.

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Yes we even witnessed that to some extent with PMDG. They were falling behind Fenix quite a lot at some point. Same sort of stubbornness or what is it?

I must say though. Let’s not make this overly personal as an anti-MK rant. There’s really no need for that. I think he’s Dutch and so am I and we’re known (feared) for being overly direct (or perhaps blunt, others would say). Aerosoft is a big organisation and I think he already got into trouble with regards to the Twotter-release. Surely he will either adapt or be replaced. Regardless, let’s not make it personal. None of us know his exact motives. Let the man speak for himself.

With regards to Aerosoft as a developer, since the Twotter they got off my instant buy list and it remains to be seen if they’ll come back on it. I really hope so, but we’re gonna need to see more ambition than this. “Simulating a pilots job” just isn’t good enough for me anymore and looking around in the developers scene there’s plenty of other stuff to choose from in a bit. #evolution

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And I thought it was just me! How a company which hates their customers manages to survive is surprising.

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Well it isn’t personal, he said it. He is a big boy, he knows what he is saying, he took the time to write that in his own words. What he should be doing is deleting it or editing it.

Its not blunt, it is passive aggressive and not nice… Origin, race etc does not get you a free pass on being like that.

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To be honest, I don’t really understand this statement, surely if you are going to simulate that, you would need an Aircraft to have all of the relevant systems etc working correctly, including the ability of those systems to fail. On a complex modern airliner 90% of the time that is exactly what the pilot is doing monitoring all those complex systems.

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Title edited to remove Callouts. Callouts are NOT allowed on this board.

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Well I don’t think it was horrible or anything. He was just trying to establish how yet another A320-family would be received. I got his point about the Fenix aiming for a different market as they indeed won’t sell it through the marketplace and aim for a completely new bar for study level. I think he actually meant to say that he couldn’t even start a competition with a product so refined as the Fenix.

With regards to the FBW I think he was trying to look if he would get support for ‘frame rate alternatives’ in the replies which of course didn’t happen because many of those ‘high end simmers’ bought a new PC for this sim in the first place and many casual simmers will probably do the same once they get the flying bug and want to take it next level.

Anyway, I’m not his lawyer but I do believe in either inviting people into any conversation about them or limit yourselves to polite facts. That’s just me then.

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Fair enough, but he closed the post on his forums, and with the downvotes outweighing the up votes, there is clearly a reluctance to engage.

Also Perhaps he could of afforded Fenix, and FBW that curtsey as well? Anyway I have said my bit.

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