Saturday, January 24, 2009

ACES Studio closed - what is the future of Microsoft Flight Simulator?

As more and more confirmations appear about the closing of Aces Studio, everyone is wondering what willl this mean for the future of Micorosft Flight Simulator.

Although, acording to Shacknews, a spokesman from Microsoft confirmed that this will not be the end of the Flight Simulator series (which started in 1982 with the release of Sublogic Flight Simulator 1.0) we all wonder how much time will be needed to build again the experience lost after all but 6 members of the ACES studio left.

One thing is certain it will not happen very fast. Most certanly this doesn't mean an end of our hobby, but a chance for the adddon developers to explore new areas and develop better and better addons. I'm sure Micorsoft will not cease sale of the Flight Simulator Products.
Flight Simulator X is just at begining and it has a lot of potential for the addon makers, and community, as a large part of it is still using FS2004 due to the overwhelming number of addons. It's a pitty that Direct X 10, which was one of the most important inovations of this product, will remain only a preview, but even so it is still a great product and with the right addons will keep our fire burning for years to come.

Even if FS2004 was realeased 5 years ago it is still used by a large part of the users and great addons are still to come for it. It's safe to assume Flight Simulator X can be used for the same ammount of time or even more, hopefully enough for the financial crisis to pass and Microsoft to reassemble the team.

Our thoughts are with the members of this great team, whom lost their jobs in this difficult climate, we hope they will be able to pursue new opportunities and why not maybe meet again over the years to put their names on Microsoft Flight Simulator 11 title.

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