Well...that ain´t came as expected huh?

[guzler]

Lol,

Well written.

It's much easier to keep customers in business than it is to find new ones, especially when they're vocal about what they want, you're research is done for you. Microsoft have failed in their business strategy here, they have binned the relationship with their loyal customers to try to capture a new market and this decision has clearly failed.

Loyal customers can and do make a difference to a business, the bottom line is affected by the emotion of each and every customer in a cumulative effect, that's what gets us to hand over cash at the end of the day. Any business strategy that turns it's back on loyal customers is a risky one.

I appreciate that flight sims may no longer be a desire of MS to have in it's core business, in time someone else will fill the gap, it's the law of supply and demand !
In the mean time, FSX will be staying on my PC !

[stiz]

What does being on Steam have to do with it?

MS have been anti-steam in the past, they wanted everyone to use their own version for games. allthough looking round it seems to have relaxed a bit, but not on the major money makers it seems.

[Lawman]

This will be my final "contribution" on the subject because basically I've said what I've wanted to say and I only would be repeating myself.

The point you are trying to make as I understand it is that MS pulled out because their market slumped.I agree entirely with that but the point I am trying to get across is that it is mostly MS FAULT that their market has slumped!

I respectfully disagree with you that MS is to blame for the slumping of the FS-market. As a matter of fact, it is largely MS who has kept (civilian) flight simming alive when everybody else pulled out of the genre at the end of the 1990s and either folded or went for RPG's and FP-shooters. Why? Because that was what the mass market was interested in. People can much easier identify with a "lone hero who single-handedly takes on the baddies to save the world" than they can being a virtual pilot "merely going from point A to point B". It is no coincidence that RPG's and FP-shooters emulate the movies, especially in visual effects which are way more eye-catching than MSFS can ever be by definition. There is a (non-coincidental) parallel between what the movie industry churns out and what kind of games get released. Like I've said in a previous post, flight simming lost its "showcase"-status to other genres and has to compete with other pastimes. The niche group that remained (for everything there's a niche group) isn't big enough to make it wortwhile for MS to keep pouring money into MSFS, when they can use that same money for something (even) more profitable to them. Flight simmers are an older demographic with disposable income to buy add-ons and maintain an add-on industry. That is of no use to MS who isn't in the add-on business, but is "expected" to create the base product upon which the add-on industry can build. And because they "have to" supply the base product, MS needs a bigger audience to make it worthwile for them to invest that kind of money. "Flight" was merely a test if a (profitable) market still existed, it's quick demise IMHO proving that it was just a test.

But the point I am trying to make is that MS has no reason nor obligation to "rescue" flight simming (or the add-on industry for that matter) and that most certainly wasn't their motivation for continuing the series for as long as they did. That the community imagines MS has such an obligation is irrational wishful thinking on the part of that community.

Spoiled childern have a right to whine because it's not their fault having been spoiled. That's entirely up to their parents

Continuing with your analogy, I respectfully disagree with your statement that spoiled children have the right to whine. It is perhaps understandable that they whine, but it doesn't mean their point of view is either right or reasonable. When a (spoiled) child goes too far in its demands and starts to disrespect you, you have to discipline it (at least if you're a responsible parent). I think most of us have been brought up that way and raise our children that way. So if we can have that mature attitude regarding our own offspring in real life, why can't we have it on this subject matter and start acting like spoiled children ourselves?

[roger-wilco-66]

I respectfully disagree with you that MS is to blame for the slumping of the FS-market. As a matter of fact, it is largely MS who has kept (civilian) flight simming alive when everybody else pulled out of the genre at the end of the 1990s and either folded or went for RPG's and FP-shooters. [...]

Please accept my respectful disagreement. Sascha66 said that MS resigned because their __own__ market slumped, and that's the way it was and still is. "The" FS market outside of Microsofts range is alive as never before. And it was not MS who kept that market alive, it was and is the freeware community and on behalf of the commercial side, the payware addon developers. Ever since and it will be so in the future. If MS can't adjust to that anymore, their out of the race, which they prctically are.
So I agreee with Sascha that it is MSs own fault that their part of the market slumped. What do you expect what happens if you throw a good product on a market like this and stop developing it? At some point the market is saturated, and sales decline. If you want to start earning money again, you need to do something, and MS never did it. Probably couldn't after releasing ACES.
That whole thing is like a greek tragedy, or a fine modern example for Goethe's "The sorcerer's apprentice" : Sir, my need is sore, the spirits I have cited, my commands ignore.
Tha german original illustrates it better, by the way.

:ernae:
Mark



PS: If FSX flightsimmers have ever been "spoiled" then by the freeware community or the payware developers, but never by MS, IMHO.

[Roger]

When Microsoft took on Fs and Cfs, they created a growing, loyal following over a number of years and many of us became Fs and Cfs junkies. "Flight" finished and now nothing at all on the books shows great disrespect from MS to their loyal band. I am very disappointed with this present state of affairs and truely wonder if FsXI would have broken the bank for Microsoft?
I wonder what Bill Gates and Paul Allen really think about the company they created and where it's going?

I believe it's time to close this thread and let this sad state of affairs drift off to thread heaven.