World update question regarding 3rd party scenery - Soliciting Opinions

As most of you know, ORBX is working on their upcoming Cityscape Sydney scenery.

(Now, I have no problem purchasing a 3rd party airport scenery, as I believe that it will continue to be the best way to have the highest quality “airport” scenery for our favorite places.)

With World Updates coming from Microsoft and Asobo, should we all wait until a particular continent is released in a World Update, before buying (or obtaining freeware scenery for that matter) large area sceneries from third party vendors??

In other words, let’s say Australia is in an upcoming World Update. Could this be the “FREE” answer to our quest for the highest quality possible? I don’t fly in Japan, but, for those of you who do, did this past World Update for let’s say Tokyo, provide the quality that a Cityscape Tokyo from ORBX would provide? In the end, I just want opinions on whether should we hold our wallets closed for a while?

I’m not planning on buying anything until I see what they do with the US. I’ve flown around some of the areas and seen the terrible scenery. For an example, fly into San Diego, CA. If they manage to fix whatever is wrong with their code and AI that is doing that (which is rampant across the country) then I will not feel a need to buy 3P.

This is a complicated and good question that deserves a complicated answer. And based on my observation so far, even if someone answers it, it will be subject to change in near future. That being said, I’ll make a guess based on what I’ve seen so far: Microsoft/Asobo will be trying their best not to harm the business of third parties, specially large studios such as ORBX, Gaya, PMDG, A2A etc, unless they have a solution that’s better technologically and financially. For the moment being just assume that if ORBX is making X Y Z, Microsoft will focus on A B and C instead. Whether that will change in the future, I don’t know.