The issue with this statement is that this depends on the very definition of what fs2020 is, to Asobo and Microsoft, vs to its customer base. In other words this is posing the question of what is the fs2020 target customer base as well. What I mean is:
-
On one hand, if fs2020 is brought to market as the pinnacle of the Flight Simulator franchise, there is a legacy of customers and vendors, highly involved in anything “simulation” related and expecting nothing but the very best in the core simulation features at a minimum. Many simmers were participating in the alpha and have given valuable feedback and bug reports to things which shouldn’t be broken at all if fs2020 is a flight simulator. It appears some of the most prevalent issues pertaining to “simulation” were not addressed at all, or not satisfactorily enough. By your logic of iterative development the product is not release-grade from the point of view of “simmers” because of these essential features which are just missing or plain wrong.
-
On the other hand, if fs2020 marketing strategy is to sell a XBox game, which compatibility with PC hardware is just a byproduct, not a core decision, the revenue strategy would be based on attracting the largest user base possible among gamers and there is nothing better than good looking visual and convincing enough “flying”. If on top of this the bulk of the revenue stream is in selling a variety of “engagement” DLC (like flight lessons and discovery tours) to a percentage of this user base and converting as much of them to regular customers of addons, then fs2020 is certainly ready for PC prime time. By your logic of iterative development the product is in release-grade from the point of view of “PC beta testers contributing to the XBox launch”.
In effect, in the later case this makes us, PC users, freely offering our time and feedback to the team for them to iron out what is not working so that the title is ready and glitch free when the new XBox hits the market, with a Market Place ready to be preyed upon by thousands of gamers and filled with good looking addons.
This wouldn’t be complete without even asking the following: is there even any specific “target” audience in particular for this product?
- Is it a game first with some extra deeper features necessary to attracting simmers?
- Is it a simulator first with gorgeous eye candy for the gamers (and for the simmer nonetheless) ?
- Is it both from the get go with more emphasis to some of the features attracting one of the audience for now and the other features attracting the other audience will come later?
In any case, the simulator will be attracting a larger gamer base than a simmer base. This is a promise for more revenue opportunities for 3rd party vendors too, but if the product is a game masquerading as a simulator, what about the tools being offered to 3rd party vendors and how deep in system and simulation modeling can they go?
Simmers are a loyal and long term target audience which is attracting highly specialized vendors. They could be contributing to filling the Market Place for a long time even after the 10 years of services planned for fs2020. Gamers are cashing in until the new AAA game but until then they are bragging how great aviators they are (which they certainly are regardless - no judgment) and they are distracting away from PS5 and other competitive threats.
At this stage and if this is any indication, the SDK is showing a strong emphasis in all the tools and info necessary for making good looking sceneries and textured aircraft models, much less emphasis on accurate systems development capabilities and inter-addons expansibility, let alone lower level control of the simulator core features.
In any case it is a highly dynamic market and if their previous market attempt with the product “Flight” is telling something, it is you can plan ahead a market place strategy around a product but you might find out complete market rejection for the product because it didn’t address the things for which the actual customers were willing to spend their money in the market place.
Let’s just hope they got it right so that we can enjoy a new simulator to the fullest as simmers, not just gamers with an XBox controller between 3 laps in Forza and 4 stages chasing zombies 