"With this update I am changing outward our guidance on availability of the PMDG 737NG3 for Microsoft Flight Simulator. It is pretty rare that I talk much about success or failure on the development side of things, simply because product development is a highly complex beast and it doesn’t describe neatly in the context of this forum unless all of us happen to be involved in development.
You will recall that I have been fairly upbeat on our expectation that we might see rapid acceleration of our NG3 development process during 4Q20, and I have even gambled that we might see a release for this product in very late 2020. Much of this hypothesis was based upon a working theory that with the release of MSFS, we would see a sharp up-tick in the implementation of features that are needed in the MSFS platform in order to fully support an airliner simulation of PMDG’s caliber once the initial MSFS platform had been released and the MS/Asobo team was able to shift attention away from their very complex, very difficult v1.0 schedule.
We are now a few months beyond the initial release of MSFS, and yes, we are seeing a sharp up-tick in the rate at which the features we need are being implemented to MSFS and we are working hand-in-glove with our friends at Asobo to identify problems, knee-knockers, dead-stop items and the like as we move the 737 into MSFS. (Working in concert with Asobo has been a new experience for us, as we are normally very much just our own isolated team- but it has been invigorating to work with a team of devs so fully dedicated to the success of their platform. One day I will tell you what this is like and how it is changing the way we work.)
Unfortunately what we didn’t count on was just how big that work-load would be on the platform side or how slow the update rate would be. The bottom line is that while we still remain convinced that MSFS will be the long-term best-platform for simming over the next decade, there are still some major technical challenges that remain to be solved before it can adequately support a product as complex as NG3. I am going to whistle-on-by the specifics here because they aren’t important to anyone except the developers involved in the work, but what I can tell you is that we are currently looking at a release timeline for PMDG 737NG3 for MSFS that is out in 3Q21 with some downside risk that it will slide into 4Q21, more than a year from now.
There are essentially two major areas that are slowing the development process, and there is some upside risk that a major breakthrough in these key trouble-making areas might allow us to slide the release timeline forward into 2Q21, but I think the risk of this forward movement is very, very small."
Like I said in another thread, this is not surprising. PMDG aren’t really early adopters of anything. It took them 1,5 years to get the 777 base pack from FSX to Prepar3d. To wait 1 year for a new product in MSFS seems to fall in line with their actual track record.
Translation: MSFS is nowhere near as completed as we had expected it to be when the initial release was launched, and it has many issues that prevent us from being able to release a quality aircraft for the platform.
At least they are being upfront and honest. Sure is disappointing to hear though.
I’ll admit I’m a bit disappointed, but I’m not surprised though. I’d rather have them take the time to get it right, than release something that is not ready yet. When they do release, I’ll be the first in line with my cash in hand.
No one should be surprised by this, as they were not the first ones to deliver for FSX & P3D either. Their development is usually at snail’s pace because of the niche-ness of the FS market, and their perfectionist nature.
If you see how “amateurs” can rework the A320 FMC / screens / add complete new functions (not improving but new / autoplitot etcetc etc … i wonder if those amateurs are so good or the Pmdg are superslow as proffesionals
PMDG aren’t the developers they used to be. They still can’t push out an updated 777. Everything just gets ‘pushed back’. We’re in the middle of the pandemic where everyone is mainly inside so chop chop. We pay a lot of money for their planes.
Having said that - as the months progress with MSFS and we see it’s true potential unveil, it will be much sweeter by the time study level aircraft arrive.
Sorry to hear that. I was waiting anxiously for pmdg 737 for the platform. Pmdg acts a little bit shy with msfs team I guess.
I think that new msfs probably force them to change the way they were coding. And they are feeling scared by that?
The most interesting bit, though, is at the very end of the post:
Since we had planned to be very deep into 737, 747, 777, J-41 and DC-6 conversion to MSFS by now- but it is clear that we won’t need to dedicate those resources to MSFS for a while longer, we have torn open the agenda and begun to look at “what happens next?”
This is the thing that saddens me the most: basically it’s not just that development is taking longer, but it has been literally put on hold until the platform is more mature, and they are moving resources on different projects.
Exactly and when it comes out, as does anything, it will have it’s start up bugs too, but as they have always done, it will probably again set the standard.