I agree with all of this. Aerosoft made my “dont buy / support list” also a while ago. And as much as I want the Twin Otter still, I’m not sure even after the sound updates and bug fixes it will be for me. Its clear AS is fine with sub-par aircraft just to make a quick buck, and are helping to lower the bar for acceptable aircraft in MFS. I don’t want that and I won’t support those companies. I want high-fidelity, high-functioning aircraft with SOME systems depth (Doesn’t need to be study level), but needs to be more than what AS provides. And their attitude towards paying customers is horrendous. I hope to buy the Twotter eventually but I’m losing hope that plane will even hit my hangar. I’ll stick to those devs he (MK) bashed, as they do a much better job of providing quality aircraft for the price. And I am a real pilot, I don’t want toys, I want simulation level add-ons.
Reading between the lines it’s pretty obvious that Aerosofts wants
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A piece of the pie of Bredok3d and CaptainSim with successful, low effort products
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To be the one to bring the A320 to Xbox.
I still don’t understand this statement.
The Xbox can run a fully modeled aircraft, so what, precisely, is the issue? I don’t get the slamming of the Xbox. My guess is 99% of the people making statements to the inferiority of the Xbox haven’t even experienced the sim on it.
I said this on the Twin Otter forum — there are plenty of “casual” PC simmers. Every sale of the Twin Otter (and CRJ, for that matter) has only been for PC, so why the Xbox blame?
I wish the wording was more about catering to a broader more casual audience, period, regardless of chosen platform. FS20 seems to have reached this broader audience for more reasons than just offering it on Xbox. “Gaming” has changed drastically in the last number of recent years. What used to be something I wouldn’t want to admit to being into has now an acceptance by the greater populace. More people play video games now than ever before. Add into that the availability of Xbox Game Pass on PC (and FS20 coming out in the middle of the pandemic) and you’ve made it even easier for people to install and experience FS20 without having to pay anything additional for it.
If Aerosoft wants to rake in cash by appealing to a broader market, then that is their business, blaming the Xbox for that by the sim community is hitting below the belt and unfair.
Nobody is slamming the XBOX, in this Thread.
Sadly MK said that Xbox had such memory limits that the Twin Otter could not have things like a moving trim wheel animation.
This obviously hit a nerve. I will happily own the fact I don’t think it should be on Xbox right now, but because it’s still not in great shape, but I will say I no longer believe it holds the SIM back, the only thing doing that is Devs who try to brain wash the community into thinking their worst effort is the best it’s going to be.
No one will honestly blame the Xbox for bad Devs anymore, we have seen it once already and learnt.
If all Devs go easy money over systems depth, fine XP-12 will give you a home should you want one, but I don’t think this will happen.
If Aerosoft wants to let itself be dragged into irelvence that’s up to them, as with everything the gravey train always runs out of steam.
You, personally, have opened my eyes to the fact that there are serious simmers on an Xbox, and I definitely try to be more mindful of my ribbing of the platform as a result of it.
I started typing out this long laundry list of items of why an Xbox is a poor choice for serious simming, but ultimately realized a) it’s probably not important and b) it closely mirrors the infinite Console v PCMasterRace argument anyway.
So you’re right, we shouldn’t wholesale point at the Xbox crowd and condemn them as casual scrubs, but you would have a very hard time convincing me that the percentage of casual simmers on Xbox is even comparable to the percentage on PC, it’s got to be way higher.
Plus, as @SuperSixBravo mentioned while I was typing this out, it definitely doesn’t help the platform’s reputation when it’s being blamed by the face of Aerosoft as the reason things were cut.
Please cease with the namecalling such as “gatekeeping” and other sly and not so sly digs at each other. Sustained behavior like that gets this thread closed, as warned earlier.
If a person owns a Cessna 170B and flys it regularly out of their local municipal airport, logging hours and working with an instructor on their piloting skills, and, as such, spends $1200 on peripherals and flys the C170B regularly in FS20 working on their pattern work, navigation and experiencing exploration that would be near impossible in the real world, are they a casual simmer?
Because all that can be done and more with the sim on an Xbox. Now if they do all that on a PC, are they a serious simmer?
The problem is with our definition of “Serious Simmer” and not with the platform the simmer chooses.
It’s possible there are more casual simmers on Xbox, but given how hard it has been to even procure one (I’d like a second X, but can’t find one anywhere), I’m wondering just how true your assumption is.
Regardless, Aerosoft need to own their decisions and not blame anyone or anything for those decisions. It’s 100% on them.
(And I’m glad I was able to give you insight into us serious Xbox simmers) ![]()
The fact that $1200 worth of peripherals even exist for the Xbox would come as a surprise to me. I know Turtle Beach and others are starting to bring yokes and pedals, but what kind of peripherals beyond that?
Because I have an image and a reputation to maintain: yes it’s serious simming on PC, no it’s not serious simming on Xbox ![]()
You can’t dangle this in front of me and not expect me to say “buy a PC”.
Thrustmaster TCA Boeing Yoke Pack — $499.00
Thrustmaster TCA Boeing additional throttle quadrant — $149.99
Thrustmaster TPR pedals — $599.00
All connected to my Xbox.
I also have:
Thrustmaster Hotas One — $87.99
Thrustmaster TFRP pedals — $129.99
I’ve got a PC. The sim runs worse on it than it does on my Series X and when I fly on Xbox, I spend zero time screwing with it trying to improve the experience unlike on my PC, where I cannot not screw with it constantly.
My main interest in other Airbus aircraft is the A350. I’m actually surprised Flight Factor hasn’t been announcing any intention to create their A350 to MSFS. But at least Digital Flight Dynamics is working on it, if that ever comes to light.
Otherwise, if Aerosoft is working on the A330, I would prefer them to focus on the A330-900neo instead. I’m just that kind of person who prefers to fly the latest generation of aircraft.
It’s probably why I’m not really interested in flying the Fenix A320. I’m sure it’s going to be a great aircraft to fly, based on their announcements and all the news articles about it. But I just don’t have the same interest in flying it because it’s the CEO version, while we already have the later-generation NEO version in the FBW A32NX.
For now, I’m already content with Headwind’s A330-900neo. But if Aerosoft can make an even more refined aircraft. I would definitely get it from them.
If this is aimed at me, then please understand, I am beyond caring what MSFS can or cant offer, because the fact is there are other sim’s. I have personally invested a lot of money and time into this sim completely off my own volition, I have complained and complained and am not sorry one bit about it, because I want this product to succeed and this SIM to be my go to.
I am happy to have some of the planes I have, I am happy that now (only recently) it has really started to come on, do I want all the planes I have in X-Plane in it? Well of course, will that happen quickly? no, but more than anything I have always wanted the SIM to be the best, and IMHO it is now going that way, but it needs Dev’s like Fenix, PMDG, SWS, IFE, iniBuilds, etc, etc to push it, to give MS/Asobo a reason to keep pushing it forward, and it needs these dev’s to help gain the more serious simmers.
If MK wants to write of the customers that kept it going for all those years, I mean he keeps telling us how hard it was, but yet they stayed in business right? was he on bread and water for all those years? No I doubt it very much! so I dont beleive his sales figures of the past, and its not the customers business, just keep making planes and good ones at that! We dont care what is viable or not thats up to them to decide, and look at his post.. He asked what we would like then says no to 90% of it, but got in a lot stuff about other dev’s that was completely un-needed! But I know why and its wrong!
So I dont care what the sim has right now, or what Aerosoft makes, what I do care about is the things I highlighted in my first post!
FBW IMHO have saved this Sim, as have WT for Airliners and high fidelity IFR flying, why even go at them (Performance/JS/HTML etc) over what they use to achieve something we all love and need if you want to fly a good Airliner? and even if you dont care for the FBW it is still wrong. FBW have way more talent if we are to compare.
PMDG, FENX, iniBuilds are all coming and when they do lets see. In the mean time I can fly all these planes in full study level in X-Plane, so I dont care, none of it is going to be new to me, the A320, the 737 is not going to do anything more than they do in any other sim at this level as far as simulating the plane.
But What will be new to me is having them in this most beautiful sim, which through hard work from all involved will become king and I will buy all the planes, and I will still fly the FBWA32NX because these guys are just going next level lately and it will soon be up there with Pay ware, that I can almost guarantee.
That’s what I care about, the total an utter passive aggressive tones used in the post. It is nothing more than a massive charade to boast about nothing, and make other dev’s look bad, while saying “hey but we got ya!, buy our stuff, we know what you want”
For Example - In regards to Fenix, Why even mention what they are doing, where they are going and the negative that it cant go to XBOX? why? We all know that, Why not simply say nothing, or Say
“Fenix are Developing a really highly detailed A320 simulation, which is not something we are looking to do at the moment” and leave it at that?
No he had to get into how its done, it cant be sold on the Market Place, We dont even consider them because all they are doing is… This is just an attempt to put off people from Fenix and if it isn’t then why even say it? It has no bearing on what he was asking, because he wasn’t asking he was doing something else and IMHO it was very underhanded and sinister.
So TLDR: I dont care what the sim offers, I dont care what audience/s Aerosoft want to target, I care about what is right! and as I have always said…Whenever the ball is dropped, there is always someone right there to pick it up!
As far as I understand it, the Likes of Flight Factor and many other well established X-Plane dev’s are at the moment just not interested in bringing their products to MSFS.
I dont take that as a diss on MSFS, I just think they are happy with where they are at in the XP ecosystem. I mean Hotstart with the CL650 have for me re-defined “Study level” and the top guy at Flight Factor is doing his 777 Type rating and pouring all that knowledge into the 777 V2 and they also have the 787 in progress and a major update to the un-obtainable (MK words) A350 So I guess they got a lot on their plate.
I mean the A350 can take me over 45 mins of pre flight at times, That is a lot to port over I guess. With XP12 on the way and I am not bias (I just dont like people spewing lies) but it does look like its going to be good , no it will never look as amazing as MSFS, and I am sure in time all this will be possible, as having said what I have said about the CL650, when I go back to the CJ4 in MSFS and look at what WT did with that I mean it is seriously good and in some cases quite close to the CL650 as they have similar Avionics and we are talking a $110 add-on here, so I have every faith this is all going to come to MSFS, just not for a long time and I am sure in time we will see Flight Factor and Hot Start, but not yet!
Actually I was kinda agreeing with you…. Im just saying that there are this that don’t. Great write up BTW,
It’s kind of sad to see Aerosoft going this route. I personally want a study level airliner, not that I would like to play around failure modes, but I want the immersion feel, especially how the systems need to be configured and more importantly, how it handles when flying manually, which I always do in full climbing and landing. it’s a thing to make a really immersive plane with a check panel to enable some automatic co pilot or Flight Engineer to take over some work yet I can tinker around when desired.
Of course I personally do love a tier for less realistic aircraft, like how I love the DC design F14 and will buy their Concorde, real enough flight dynamics and look, taken out failure modes and make a fake INS navigation and make it work like the modern AP will make life easier at more casual flying where I might not sat in front of the computer for 3 hours straight. and say for the F14, when my mood is there for serious flying, it’s realistic (apparently, which I have no way to confirm if it behaves like the real thing, maybe some retired pilot can shine some light on this?) flight behaviour when manual flying will let me enjoy from departure to arrival full manual flying.
After all, I am ok they make some lower level simulation if it’s their business decision, but don’t bash those who want to do a full simulation, and make it clear how study level you are aiming to tell the customer
This says quite a bit. Is he really stating they don’t see the value in focusing on simulating the aircraft? How exactly do you simulate being a pilot? This isn’t “pilot simulator”. It’s flight simulator. Really confused by that statement.
Well seeing as it usually take me 30 mins to preflight the FBW A32NX, I’m pretty sure an extra 15 minutes is not that bad. Hahaha..
I guess it just depends on the difference in expectations. If we are talking about $110 addon, then it does make sense that there’s “a lot” of things to port and re-code.
But to be honest, I would already be happy as long as we have a “working” A350 for even half the price. And by working I mean it has a functional flight control, able to fly NAV mode and selected altitude and airspeed at the very least.
Don’t get me wrong, I think having a complete and “study-level” aircraft is great. But we live in an age of Agile and Iterative software development where we can enjoy the product from its initial stage, and continues on using it with future updates. And I just personally feel like it’s a missed opportunity for developers having to “complete” an aircraft before release. For example, having to wait while the developers are coding “hydraulic and electrical simulation” feels like something that should be reserved for future development improvement. Not as an essential function for a first release.
I mean, look at FBW. We all know the goal of the project, we all expect the aircraft to be fully realistic with all the bells and whistles “eventually”. It’s an amazing goal to have, but until that goal is reached, we are already enjoying the current state of the aircraft and it is functional. It’s working.
I guess what I’m expecting from developers is going in the same route. Just create a basic foundation of A350 that we can all use and fly. Make it clear of the final goal of the end product and communicate what it can and can’t do. And if it needs to be payware, make it into a subscription-based. Like 1 or 2 dollars per month.
Or price it based on the developmental milestone. For example, a basic and functional A350 would be $10. Granted it has a lot of INOP buttons and functions, but you can set a flight plan, take off, cruise with the autopilot, descend, approach, land, taxi, park. But the overall stage would be about 10% of what the goal of the aircraft would be. So the next iteration would be an update to a fully functional LNAV and VNAV, which bumps up the price to $20. New customers would have to buy the full $20. But existing customers can choose to stay with their old version if they want. But if they want to use the latest version, they have to pay additional $10 to download the next updated version.
This way, customers are still paying the same exact value of the quality of the product, while it gives the developers some incentives on how well and marketable their product is, and continue the development even further. The more complex and more updates it pushes, the more expensive the addon would get. And exiting customers would only need to pay for the price difference of the version that they’re trying to update.
@Neo4316
I disagree with everything you say, but I disagree nicely. Haha. ![]()
…Just wait. Wait for the PMDG/Fenix (Get that Fenix! Even an old Airbus is a very modern Airbus!). Wait untill that moment you sit in the cockpit, left seat, and you have actual systems to monitor. Systems that you know and understand its environmental and technical limitations of. Systems that will have their own quircks and need their special love and attentions at times that are pre-identified by you because you know them. You studied them.
Once they bring you a plane like that, that is completely in homeostase, you will never turn back on anything else. Because those planes are not their mainly for the flying between A and B but they are about the operations of flight between A and B and that’s a whole different immersion that I hope you and many (new) simmers will experience very soon. ![]()
I know about all that… It’s just.. sitting in an old generation aircraft is like having this itch that you can’t scratch. I know Fenix is going to be amazing.. But I’m just not that interested. Unless Fenix miraculously released a neo.. Then I’m gonna jump in straight away. And if for some reason Airbus manufactures a newer generation A320 with a revolutionary new cockpit. Then that itch would return.
There’s nothing against them or anything. It’s just my own personal and very subjective feeling. It doesn’t even extend to flight simming. Even I feel that itch if I have a car that’s 1 generation behind the current one in the market. That’s just who I am as a person. So I know what I will experience.
Haha I see. And you cant trick yourself into just knowing you have the latest, next generation flight sim addon? Hahaha. Noh you do what’s best for you. But if I ever catch you with a Fenix sceenshot I’m gonna mock ya for it! ![]()