31JAN26] What About Those 777 Sounds?
Today, 22:16
Captains,
I just posted my first information update of 2026 in a separate thread you can read here.
I wanted to address one additional topic separately because I think it is important.
What the Heck Happened to the 777 Sound Update?:
We currently have a sound package for the 777 fleet in development.
We have been talking about this for some time, and it has left some users rightly wondering “what gives?”
I want to offer an apology for the fact that it has not been released. There are a ton of reasons why, all of them related to decisions I have to make when allocating developer resources on projects at PMDG. All of those decisions were the right decisions to make, most of those decisions were easy, but a few of them were really complicated and difficult. None of them really matter to you, and none of them would have come to your attention except for one thing:
I made the mistake of telling you about this new 777 sound feature before I should have.
I love our products, and I think I work with a team of the most talented devs in the business. Any one of you should be so lucky as I am to sit down every day and problem solve with a team of developers who are so genuinely innovative, thoughtful, creative, funny and hard working. I don’t impress easily, as my perspective in simming is reality based, so when members of the dev team roll into a meeting to share something they have done that impresses me- my inner-simmer comes out and I get excited. Most times I sit on my hands rather than telling you about these things, because it will be some time before you see the feature in finished form.
We rebuilt our sound team in 2024/2025 in order to improve that weak area of our products. When they shared their 777 update work, I really liked what I heard, and I was excited to know that we were going to succeed in addressing this problem area in our dev work. But I should not have told you about it.
It was too early.
Look, I’m an optimist. When we green-lit the updated sound package for 777, we had a timeline built in that wound up getting decimated by delays in the 777 development pushing it into competition with 737 development needs. That was bad planning on my part, and we simply reached a point where I had no choice but to strip resources from 777 in order to get 737 finished. The 737 package has a world-class sound environment and it was the right decision to make because there was just no way we could release the 737 with it’s old, outdated sounds.
But that has given many the impression that we simply walked away from the 777 sound update.
We haven’t, but that perception is entirely valid.
My natural tendency to be candid with you would normally have me inserting some timeline expectations and other assurances right here in this part of the post. I am going to take the feedback and refrain, however- as that tendency is what created the disappointment in the first place.
So, yes, I am aware that we failed to meet your expectations. Yes, I hear your feedback that this is a bad habit pattern for PMDG. Yes, we are working to change that facet of how we communicate.
And lastly, yes- the sounds are still in the update plan for 777. We will tell you more about them when the time is appropriate.
Thank you for your patience. Sometimes we make mistakes.