I am not sure if this Halo starship thingy will really increase amout of simmers in total as probably many older hardcore realism simmers had a stroke when Pelikan jumpscared them at the end of the showcase. /s
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I wouldnt necessarily just localize it to just any chat like room. Its everywhere. Reddit, Avsim, here, hell, people even got ā ā ā ā ā when i smile in line at the grocery store.
Given the deep pockets of MS, I really donāt think that contracting out to some other 3rd party to develop the Pelican impacted them being able to fix other parts of the core sim or purchase the help of yet some other 3rd parties. Like they hired WT to improve default avionics (which has been a great investment given the G1000 Nxi and coming improvements), Iām sure if they feel it is optimal to purchase 3rd party help for core sim improvements they surely still can.
And for those who seem to be gnashing their teeth about bringing in new audiences or that āarcadeā features are going to taint the legacy and/or their experience in MSFS, well thatās too bad since MS/Asobo can do as they please, and a great many of us long time flight simmers do want the sim to expand to new user bases, for the longer/greater good of the MSFS franchise and its longevity, financial health, etc.
Let alone business related moves to bring in new audiences and similar stuff, thereās the matter of how real world software development works which a lot seem to be not clued into when complaining about why MS/Asobo are doing X when they could be doing Y.
a) Firstly itās not the case that throwing more bodies at solving particular issues or enhancing particular areas in a codebase means that thing gets done faster/better. The experts and subject matter experts (SMEs) could just be 1 or 2 or 3 devs working on a particular area or functionality(ies), and they are usually best left to do so themselves rather than throwing 1 or 2 or 3 or more devs along with them.
b) Secondly, not all developers have the same set of skills and are easily switched around to work on anything in something as vast as the MSFS codebase. Also, some devs will have accumulated a lot of experience/expertise in a particular area of the software product and codebase and therefore it is in the companyās best interest that they keep working on that.
Iāve worked in software development for over 25 years now and I can unequivocally say that both a) and b) are hard truths regardless of what the software product or codebase is. If only if it was as easy as throwing more devs at a problem or switching them around to work on any part of the product at any time 
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Well. Thereās obviously already someone else doing exactly this. So why should MS copy this? Why shouldnāt MS reach higher and come up with something utterly revolutionary?
(ā¦they already didā¦.)
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What!? No Thunderbird 2!? Cāmon.. 
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I hope not, while the Airland supported offerings are a good compromise until the full opportunities of the native advances in flight modelling are incorporated we donāt yet approach helicopter flight realism. The advances in flight modelling will also be available to the external physics engines too.
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Itās not āall or nothingā. Itās entirely possible to focus majority of resources on improving the sim and having some resources to have āfunā or ālure in new customersā.
I played MSFS for decades and had always wanted the opportunity to go to space since FS2000 modeled the earth and sun.
The effort to develop two planes is so small compared to the effort on the rest of the sim. When weāre working, you know sometimes we need to take breaks to have fun on pet projects, however small, to recharge and have more energy to move on to the required work.
To those who donāt want to fly spaceships - do not fly them. Just donāt select them - donāt fly them. They are many planes in the hangar that I donāt fly. It bothers me nothing that theyāre in there to select. I could care less and would never want to take away something others enjoy.
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Thunderbird 2 was always my favourite! Iād pay serious money for a study level Thunderbird 2, it would be awesome!
Agreed. Itās Microsoft that are not clear. Say one thing but do something else.
Iāve been at it a bit longer but what you say there is absolutely the truth, and probably few people outside of development really appreciate that.
Also hiring the right developers can be very hard and take a long time and on a complex codebase it can take many months for them to become productive. A lead time of 12 months can be very real to grow a team, even if you have money available right now.
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Whilst this could be very true I wonder just how short lived their interest in MSFS 2020 will be.
I think that it is far more likely that the vast majority of those interested in Halo will likely move off to something else after a few hours or so rather than become interested in flight sim.
Letās face it, just flying around interesting locations in a Halo ship is going to get pretty boring quite soon and flight sim itself is also pretty boring unless you are willing to put quite a bit of effort into learning a bunch of āstuffā 
My thoughts are that this will be a brief passing fancy which will maybe hold interest to some for a couple of hours or so and then it will be shelved never to be touched again.
Marketing genius? I donāt think so.
Just my thoughts FWTW
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I donāt disagree. Many Gamepass subscribers will install MSFS - a title that they would never have considered previously - for the Pelican since itās free as part of their Gamepass sub. Most will fly it, and then move on. However, a subset of those will explore MSFS more and likely get sucked in. Even if itās a small percentage of everyone who does try it, thatās still potentially a group of people that will stick with MSFS in the thousands. And those people will spend money in the marketplace. Ultimately, thatās the goal here for MS.
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I hear and totally understand what you say.
And, yet, I am not convinced
I agree with some of what you say here and yes the majority will go back to something faster paced. But in the short term..maybe some new game pass subscribers who move into other things through that platformā¦more sales..more revenue even if for a short period. After the initial launch of msfs and the deluge of sales in the immediate aftermath things will have steadied and the project is reliant on keeping income flowing, if that means they introduce some gimmicks along the way and we get a long time supported project then Iām happy to roll with it. But I am one voice amongst thousands and not everyone is going to agree. Iām ok with that too. I wonāt fly the gimmicks and Iāll continue to use it as a simulator because thatās what I want from it. But there are also days I have little time and I hop in something default at the beginning of the runway and take off. No procedures just sightseeing. Doesnāt mean Iām not a simmer just that I also have stuff to do away from simming too 
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This is awesome news. Thank you!
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Letās agree to disagree my friend
There is no harm in a bunch of folks having different ideas. After all, itās what makes the world a more interesting place and Iām okay with that 
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Absolutely 
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I agree and disagree with you at the same time, which is quite funny
I agree basically to your points about the development - yes, they got many different companies in their boat to produce assets/aircraft for the sim and these also earn some share on overall sales to get staff paid. That is done mainly to shift workload on one hand and to increase quality on the other hand (thatās the point I have to disagree, especially when it comes to MilViz (DHC-2) and INI (A310) which always create detailed and realistic aircraft.)
The A320 you mentioned was basically done by a team within Asobo likely - thatās why the quality is mediocre (while anyway it is a great base to start with as we see on FBWs mod). Also the C172 is actually really well for a default aircraft.
On priorities I donāt think itās possible to split these in a way you did as these are anyway different teams within Asobo.
As you wrote WT is about the G1000 and likely ATC. Then you have the SDK team dealing likely with 3rd party companies (bugfixing and development) as prio 1 and documentation as prio 2.
Then there is likely a āDataā team which deals with external connections and collecting data (live traffic, Bing, multiplayer) and at least two+ tech teams (including QA - dealing with the sims modules for graphic processing/drawing, data processing, flight dynamics, build process, general bugfixing on the backend, Xbox system support) and ofc a market place team dealing with new releases there.
Most likely there are even more specific teams - I know they are currently building a separate traffic/ATC team to cover issues on both ends. Anyway each team has got their own priorities so fixing critical issues is likely number 1 on each.
Anyway reproducing these issues, validating these issues and troubleshooting them is extremely time consuming so there seems to be no progress but there actually is some. Itās the same thing on every large IT project out there I joined in the last five years, irrelevant in which sector
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Has World Update 10 been delayed orā¦? Itās supposed to come out tomorrow but weāve heard absolutely nothing about it and there just seems to be radio silence regarding it. Any news or updates about it would be much appreciated
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No information given, itās still a surprise