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#11
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Good points all.
Indeed Microsoft had/has the money to have made an even better COF. What they don't have is enough talent. FS is a very small part of Microsoft, and by no means the sexy, high paying part. MS is always hiring, and yet never seems to have enough developers to go around. Great developers don't grow on trees and Microsoft has to compete for them as well as anyone else. Their Games Division which is a very small part of MS (of which the FS team is a tiny island) has been concentrating on XBox, which consequently is getting the lions share of the budget. Quite frankly I believe MS keeps FS going just as a local Pizza Parlor sponsors a local soccer team. Mostly PR and because some VP somewhere is fighting for it. Sooner of later the bean counters are most likely going to win and just do away with it. I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised. One thing I could see happening is FS moving over to XBox. That would remove a lot of headaches of trying to support all of the different hardware configurations out there. Careful what you ask for you just might get it. -- ....Carl Frisk Anger is a brief madness. - Horace, 20 B.C. http://www.carlfrisk.com wrote in message ... On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 11:05:34 GMT, "Carl Frisk" wrote: Thing is for $50 bucks FS9 gives you IMO a really great realistic flying experience. I have to agree with your statement here except that it provide a fairly realistic experience but then I wonder about what FS should be. FS has been around what 15 years? A long time anyway. There have been some good general aviation sims compete with FS. Pro Pilot, Flight Unlimited and Fly for example. All these sims took 1 to 2 years to develop from scratch and they were able to do as good and in some areas better than FS. Now my point is if those sims could be done in a couple of years from nothing should not FS be much, much better than it is? MS has an established cycle now of every two years coming out with an incremental upgrade. The same time it takes to develop a new sim and all they do is an incremental upgrade. Should not by now we have instruments that are as good as say, the Reality XP line. Should not the long standing default aircraft look as good as the PMDG aircraft, for example. Should not the aerodynamics problems/errors that one reads about in the newsgroups be fixed by now? Should not the ATC be at least as good as say, Radar Contact? Should not there be a flight planner as nice as say, Flightsim Commander? Should not the terrain elevations be at least as good as those provided by 3rd party developers? These are questions I think about when I consider how long FS has been on the market. MS opened up the door for 3rd parties to come along and improve it. Yes they do let some things out in their SDKs now and it is greatly appreciated by many. However, I still remember for years and years the sim community was asking MS for information about their aircraft and scenery structure. MS steadfastly refused to release or say anything. It took dedicated 3rd party programmers to figure out on their own how things worked. It wasn't until I believe it was Pro Pilot came out and encouraged 3rd party developers by providing an open architecture that MS relented and started releasing the SDKs. It seems it has been marketing pressures that have brought about major changes, not the kindness of MS. IMO we probably would still not have SDKs if it weren't for sims like Pro Pilot, Flight Unlimited and Fly to provide competition and actually encourage 3rd party development. Well, I'm done. Regards all Jack |
#12
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Hi abc and Carl,
Hmmmm.... Entirely reasonable questions, abc, and very possibly an accurate scenario, Carl - it sure would be enlightening to hear any sort of official/inside responses, but as that, understandably, won't happen, it's "onwards and upwards". :-) Regards, John "Carl Frisk" wrote in message ... Good points all. Indeed Microsoft had/has the money to have made an even better COF. What they don't have is enough talent. FS is a very small part of Microsoft, and by no means the sexy, high paying part. MS is always hiring, and yet never seems to have enough developers to go around. Great developers don't grow on trees and Microsoft has to compete for them as well as anyone else. Their Games Division which is a very small part of MS (of which the FS team is a tiny island) has been concentrating on XBox, which consequently is getting the lions share of the budget. Quite frankly I believe MS keeps FS going just as a local Pizza Parlor sponsors a local soccer team. Mostly PR and because some VP somewhere is fighting for it. Sooner of later the bean counters are most likely going to win and just do away with it. I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised. One thing I could see happening is FS moving over to XBox. That would remove a lot of headaches of trying to support all of the different hardware configurations out there. Careful what you ask for you just might get it. -- ...Carl Frisk Anger is a brief madness. - Horace, 20 B.C. http://www.carlfrisk.com wrote in message ... On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 11:05:34 GMT, "Carl Frisk" wrote: Thing is for $50 bucks FS9 gives you IMO a really great realistic flying experience. I have to agree with your statement here except that it provide a fairly realistic experience but then I wonder about what FS should be. FS has been around what 15 years? A long time anyway. There have been some good general aviation sims compete with FS. Pro Pilot, Flight Unlimited and Fly for example. All these sims took 1 to 2 years to develop from scratch and they were able to do as good and in some areas better than FS. Now my point is if those sims could be done in a couple of years from nothing should not FS be much, much better than it is? MS has an established cycle now of every two years coming out with an incremental upgrade. The same time it takes to develop a new sim and all they do is an incremental upgrade. Should not by now we have instruments that are as good as say, the Reality XP line. Should not the long standing default aircraft look as good as the PMDG aircraft, for example. Should not the aerodynamics problems/errors that one reads about in the newsgroups be fixed by now? Should not the ATC be at least as good as say, Radar Contact? Should not there be a flight planner as nice as say, Flightsim Commander? Should not the terrain elevations be at least as good as those provided by 3rd party developers? These are questions I think about when I consider how long FS has been on the market. MS opened up the door for 3rd parties to come along and improve it. Yes they do let some things out in their SDKs now and it is greatly appreciated by many. However, I still remember for years and years the sim community was asking MS for information about their aircraft and scenery structure. MS steadfastly refused to release or say anything. It took dedicated 3rd party programmers to figure out on their own how things worked. It wasn't until I believe it was Pro Pilot came out and encouraged 3rd party developers by providing an open architecture that MS relented and started releasing the SDKs. It seems it has been marketing pressures that have brought about major changes, not the kindness of MS. IMO we probably would still not have SDKs if it weren't for sims like Pro Pilot, Flight Unlimited and Fly to provide competition and actually encourage 3rd party development. Well, I'm done. Regards all Jack |
#13
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"Carl Frisk" wrote
Good points all. Indeed Microsoft had/has the money to have made an even better COF. What they don't have is enough talent. FS is a very small part of Microsoft, and by no means the sexy, high paying part. MS is always hiring, and yet never seems to have enough developers to go around. Great developers don't grow on trees and Microsoft has to compete for them as well as anyone else. Microsoft is known for getting the developers it wants, sometimes paying outrageous money just to keep them from working at other firms. Their Games Division which is a very small part of MS (of which the FS team is a tiny island) has been concentrating on XBox, which consequently is getting the lions share of the budget. Quite frankly I believe MS keeps FS going just as a local Pizza Parlor sponsors a local soccer team. Mostly PR and because some VP somewhere is fighting for it. Sooner of later the bean counters are most likely going to win and just do away with it. I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised. One thing I could see happening is FS moving over to XBox. That would remove a lot of headaches of trying to support all of the different hardware configurations out there. Careful what you ask for you just might get it. Microsoft's mode of operation to beat the competition down by flooding the market with a minimally better product, or to impede the sales of competing products, legally or illegally. Without Microsoft, the money would go to competing/innovative firms like the former Looking Glass Studios. Without Microsoft, the competition for our money would raise the bar. The sheep would find a way to cope, probably better off. -- ...Carl Frisk Anger is a brief madness. - Horace, 20 B.C. http://www.carlfrisk.com Path: newssvr33.news.prodigy.com!newsdbm02.news.prodigy. com!newsmst01.news.prodig y.com!prodigy.com!in.100proofnews.com!in.100proofn ews.com!border2.nntp.ash. giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!cyclone1.gnilink.ne t!spamkiller.gnilink.net! gnilink.net!nwrddc03.gnilink.net.POSTED!18ac844a!n ot-for-mail Reply-To: "Carl Frisk" From: "Carl Frisk" Newsgroups: rec.aviation.simulators References: Subject: FS9/FS2004: As fake as it gets? Lines: 73 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 22:28:10 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.15.112.63 X-Complaints-To: X-Trace: nwrddc03.gnilink.net 1080512890 4.15.112.63 (Sun, 28 Mar 2004 17:28:10 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 17:28:10 EST Xref: newsmst01.news.prodigy.com rec.aviation.simulators:150916 wrote in message ... On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 11:05:34 GMT, "Carl Frisk" wrote: Thing is for $50 bucks FS9 gives you IMO a really great realistic flying experience. I have to agree with your statement here except that it provide a fairly realistic experience but then I wonder about what FS should be. FS has been around what 15 years? A long time anyway. There have been some good general aviation sims compete with FS. Pro Pilot, Flight Unlimited and Fly for example. All these sims took 1 to 2 years to develop from scratch and they were able to do as good and in some areas better than FS. Now my point is if those sims could be done in a couple of years from nothing should not FS be much, much better than it is? MS has an established cycle now of every two years coming out with an incremental upgrade. The same time it takes to develop a new sim and all they do is an incremental upgrade. Should not by now we have instruments that are as good as say, the Reality XP line. Should not the long standing default aircraft look as good as the PMDG aircraft, for example. Should not the aerodynamics problems/errors that one reads about in the newsgroups be fixed by now? Should not the ATC be at least as good as say, Radar Contact? Should not there be a flight planner as nice as say, Flightsim Commander? Should not the terrain elevations be at least as good as those provided by 3rd party developers? These are questions I think about when I consider how long FS has been on the market. MS opened up the door for 3rd parties to come along and improve it. Yes they do let some things out in their SDKs now and it is greatly appreciated by many. However, I still remember for years and years the sim community was asking MS for information about their aircraft and scenery structure. MS steadfastly refused to release or say anything. It took dedicated 3rd party programmers to figure out on their own how things worked. It wasn't until I believe it was Pro Pilot came out and encouraged 3rd party developers by providing an open architecture that MS relented and started releasing the SDKs. It seems it has been marketing pressures that have brought about major changes, not the kindness of MS. IMO we probably would still not have SDKs if it weren't for sims like Pro Pilot, Flight Unlimited and Fly to provide competition and actually encourage 3rd party development. Well, I'm done. Regards all Jack |
#14
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"Carl Frisk" wrote
Being from Seattle I see lots of things missing and wrong with the Seattle area in FS9. Lots missing compared to which other city? Doesn't take my enjoyment away 1 bit though. Seattle looks better than other cities. Just curious what city are you flying around? Cities bigger than Seattle. In Seattle, Washington. Besides the colorful cranes, the huge golf course, and miscellaneous other stuff, there are football/soccer fields, baseball fields, even what looks like basketball courts in the suburbs. The Seattle Seahawks stadium is detailed. What might be the biggest difference is in the city of Seattle where there are many crossroads clearly showing. I do not see them in Dallas, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. The buildings in the city of Seattle are placed in line with those streets. They even appear to have courtyards drawn out in front of them. In other, bigger cities, the buildings appear to be junked in at about a 45 degree angle to where streets should be. I also see lot's of things wrong in the Redmond area which is where FS is made. The roads are off in both Seattle and Redmond. There are no crossroads roads in other cities. In case anyone wants a benchmark, this is my setup. ....Clean, full install of FS9/FS2004, no add-on scenery. ....Turn all scenery sliders to max, water is forced to about one half. ....Special effects is off. ....Fake (generated) scenery is off. Thing is for $50 bucks FS9 gives you IMO a really great realistic flying experience. MS opened up the door for 3rd parties to come along and improve it. And if you happen to be a programmer that includes you. Your system is a little on lower mid range so most likely you aren't rendering everything that a high-end system will. And I suspect you will get better texture rendering from XP than you ever will from Millennium. What resolution is monitor running FS in? -- ...Carl Frisk Anger is a brief madness. - Horace, 20 B.C. http://www.carlfrisk.com "John Doe" wrote in message ... "quilljar" wrote Sorry John Doe, But I think that Microsoft, although obscenely rich, is too easy a target, rather like 'The Government'. It is like government. If there was more money to be made by producing a sim which had everybody's underpants and tooth fillings show up as well as each brick in the Taj Mahal, There is an interstate highway around my big city which is barely recognizable/followable in FS9/FS2004. It looks like a dirt road at best. The rest is desolation, except for a few low detail buildings. You must have some very big tooth fillings. I am sure they would produce it. At the moment, outside the military, there aren't the computers around that can handle FS9 even at its present state. I remember when my monitor displayed 16 colors and I complained about games requiring 256. In fact, my system was way substandard. After a few upgrades, I ran Multi-Player Battletech online at about 2 frames per second. It's really tough trying to hit a target when you cannot tell its heading. But it was fun anyway. By about the time you are being slid into the crematorium I daresay something approaching your desires will be on the workbench in Seattle :-) But making scenery much more detailed isn't my argument. I wrote "Seattle looks much better than most other cities I have seen in FS9/FS2004". My frame rates are about 15 FPS over Seattle with all scenery sliders maxed, except no fake scenery generated. My system: ...K7T Turbo2 mainboard ...Athlon XP 2400+ (2 GHz) CPU, thanks to BIOS upgrade from MSI ...512 MB, 133 MHz RAM ...NVIDIA GeForce3 video card, faster than low end GeForce4 ...Windows Millennium |
#15
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John Doe,
All I asked for was what city/cities your flying in so I can go see for myself. Prior to FS9 I always thought Chicago was the most accurate by far. It would still probably be the default airport if Mayor Daly hadn't performed his midnight magic. http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/033103_ns_meigs.html -- ....Carl Frisk Anger is a brief madness. - Horace, 20 B.C. http://www.carlfrisk.com "John Doe" wrote in message ... "Carl Frisk" wrote Being from Seattle I see lots of things missing and wrong with the Seattle area in FS9. Lots missing compared to which other city? Doesn't take my enjoyment away 1 bit though. Seattle looks better than other cities. Just curious what city are you flying around? Cities bigger than Seattle. In Seattle, Washington. Besides the colorful cranes, the huge golf course, and miscellaneous other stuff, there are football/soccer fields, baseball fields, even what looks like basketball courts in the suburbs. The Seattle Seahawks stadium is detailed. What might be the biggest difference is in the city of Seattle where there are many crossroads clearly showing. I do not see them in Dallas, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. The buildings in the city of Seattle are placed in line with those streets. They even appear to have courtyards drawn out in front of them. In other, bigger cities, the buildings appear to be junked in at about a 45 degree angle to where streets should be. I also see lot's of things wrong in the Redmond area which is where FS is made. The roads are off in both Seattle and Redmond. There are no crossroads roads in other cities. In case anyone wants a benchmark, this is my setup. ...Clean, full install of FS9/FS2004, no add-on scenery. ...Turn all scenery sliders to max, water is forced to about one half. ...Special effects is off. ...Fake (generated) scenery is off. Thing is for $50 bucks FS9 gives you IMO a really great realistic flying experience. MS opened up the door for 3rd parties to come along and improve it. And if you happen to be a programmer that includes you. Your system is a little on lower mid range so most likely you aren't rendering everything that a high-end system will. And I suspect you will get better texture rendering from XP than you ever will from Millennium. What resolution is monitor running FS in? -- ...Carl Frisk Anger is a brief madness. - Horace, 20 B.C. http://www.carlfrisk.com "John Doe" wrote in message ... "quilljar" wrote Sorry John Doe, But I think that Microsoft, although obscenely rich, is too easy a target, rather like 'The Government'. It is like government. If there was more money to be made by producing a sim which had everybody's underpants and tooth fillings show up as well as each brick in the Taj Mahal, There is an interstate highway around my big city which is barely recognizable/followable in FS9/FS2004. It looks like a dirt road at best. The rest is desolation, except for a few low detail buildings. You must have some very big tooth fillings. I am sure they would produce it. At the moment, outside the military, there aren't the computers around that can handle FS9 even at its present state. I remember when my monitor displayed 16 colors and I complained about games requiring 256. In fact, my system was way substandard. After a few upgrades, I ran Multi-Player Battletech online at about 2 frames per second. It's really tough trying to hit a target when you cannot tell its heading. But it was fun anyway. By about the time you are being slid into the crematorium I daresay something approaching your desires will be on the workbench in Seattle :-) But making scenery much more detailed isn't my argument. I wrote "Seattle looks much better than most other cities I have seen in FS9/FS2004". My frame rates are about 15 FPS over Seattle with all scenery sliders maxed, except no fake scenery generated. My system: ...K7T Turbo2 mainboard ...Athlon XP 2400+ (2 GHz) CPU, thanks to BIOS upgrade from MSI ...512 MB, 133 MHz RAM ...NVIDIA GeForce3 video card, faster than low end GeForce4 ...Windows Millennium |
#16
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Up, up and away
It is entirely conjecture on my part. Just a business model that makes sense to me. I don't know any of the FS people at MS. Everytime I was over in Gameland I was too busy with the XBox folks to even think of looking for the FS people. I did on my last visit see a giant FS box in an office but it turned out to be an XBox guy who was avidly into sims. He said the FS folks were three buildings away. It was raining so hard that day that by the time I could have gotten a shuttle and popped over and back it would have consumed 2 hours at least. I regret not doing it now that I look back on it. Disclaimer: Since I've worked for Microsoft many times and in many capacities in the past I've signed many Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure statements. I've heard no rumors whatsoever about where FS might be going. It's all my own opinion about what might happen. -- ....Carl Frisk Anger is a brief madness. - Horace, 20 B.C. http://www.carlfrisk.com "John Ward" wrote in message u... Hi abc and Carl, Hmmmm.... Entirely reasonable questions, abc, and very possibly an accurate scenario, Carl - it sure would be enlightening to hear any sort of official/inside responses, but as that, understandably, won't happen, it's "onwards and upwards". :-) Regards, John "Carl Frisk" wrote in message ... Good points all. Indeed Microsoft had/has the money to have made an even better COF. What they don't have is enough talent. FS is a very small part of Microsoft, and by no means the sexy, high paying part. MS is always hiring, and yet never seems to have enough developers to go around. Great developers don't grow on trees and Microsoft has to compete for them as well as anyone else. Their Games Division which is a very small part of MS (of which the FS team is a tiny island) has been concentrating on XBox, which consequently is getting the lions share of the budget. Quite frankly I believe MS keeps FS going just as a local Pizza Parlor sponsors a local soccer team. Mostly PR and because some VP somewhere is fighting for it. Sooner of later the bean counters are most likely going to win and just do away with it. I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised. One thing I could see happening is FS moving over to XBox. That would remove a lot of headaches of trying to support all of the different hardware configurations out there. Careful what you ask for you just might get it. -- ...Carl Frisk Anger is a brief madness. - Horace, 20 B.C. http://www.carlfrisk.com wrote in message ... On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 11:05:34 GMT, "Carl Frisk" wrote: Thing is for $50 bucks FS9 gives you IMO a really great realistic flying experience. I have to agree with your statement here except that it provide a fairly realistic experience but then I wonder about what FS should be. FS has been around what 15 years? A long time anyway. There have been some good general aviation sims compete with FS. Pro Pilot, Flight Unlimited and Fly for example. All these sims took 1 to 2 years to develop from scratch and they were able to do as good and in some areas better than FS. Now my point is if those sims could be done in a couple of years from nothing should not FS be much, much better than it is? MS has an established cycle now of every two years coming out with an incremental upgrade. The same time it takes to develop a new sim and all they do is an incremental upgrade. Should not by now we have instruments that are as good as say, the Reality XP line. Should not the long standing default aircraft look as good as the PMDG aircraft, for example. Should not the aerodynamics problems/errors that one reads about in the newsgroups be fixed by now? Should not the ATC be at least as good as say, Radar Contact? Should not there be a flight planner as nice as say, Flightsim Commander? Should not the terrain elevations be at least as good as those provided by 3rd party developers? These are questions I think about when I consider how long FS has been on the market. MS opened up the door for 3rd parties to come along and improve it. Yes they do let some things out in their SDKs now and it is greatly appreciated by many. However, I still remember for years and years the sim community was asking MS for information about their aircraft and scenery structure. MS steadfastly refused to release or say anything. It took dedicated 3rd party programmers to figure out on their own how things worked. It wasn't until I believe it was Pro Pilot came out and encouraged 3rd party developers by providing an open architecture that MS relented and started releasing the SDKs. It seems it has been marketing pressures that have brought about major changes, not the kindness of MS. IMO we probably would still not have SDKs if it weren't for sims like Pro Pilot, Flight Unlimited and Fly to provide competition and actually encourage 3rd party development. Well, I'm done. Regards all Jack |
#17
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John,
As much as I'm sure I've antagonized you, I've always respected your quiet reserve in your beliefs. So I took a quick flight over LA and with just a quick look I have to agree with you. Seattle does seem to pack more eye candy than at least LA. I couldn't find the Convention Center for instance, though like I say I took a very quick look. I'll spend more time later checking out the comparative lack of eye candy in LA. However I am not surprised that the MS dev's may have spent more time on their default departure city, just as I believe they did on Chicago when it was home base. In FS2002 I was much more impressed with the Windy City than I ever was with Seattle. I always thought hey they all live or at least work here why can't Seattle be better than Chicago. In FS9 it looks like I got my way so I'm happy at least. However - The roads in the sim for Seattle are a laugh, same for my home base KPAE. I'm going to investigate 3rd party improvements and see if they are much better. VFR is really tough to do in any flight sim in any version compared to real life. I now realize I've compensated for the sim. I know where the few actual landmarks are for my local area and can fly VFR to all my local airports fairly easily now that I've found them. I just have to forget the real world when doing so. This brings back a memory of the last time I went up VFR and I had to rethink my visual cues vs. flight sim cues. So alas I too would like better scenery, roads and landmarks than MS provides. However I don't expect it from MS. In fact I would prefer to get it from a third party that already seems to be doing a better job than MS is or has a desire to. These groups seem to be doing just fine without MS and vice-versa. That said I'll say this. Microsoft didn't put any company out of business. The customers vote with their cash on who gets to keep playing the business game and who doesn't. Note the present tense. This game isn't over yet, it is simply evolving. It isn't about the best, or shoulda, coulda, woulda, it's about giving the customer what they want. The company that plays that game wins. And should win in my opinion. Linux is starting to interest me. I may cross over, after all I crossed over to GEOS then DOS then Windows from the mainframe world many years ago. I still think Windows is just now catching up to that methodology BTW. Just as I think Linux is starting to catch up to Windows, technologically that is. And in closing, If you were the head of a major software company and you started dropping inordinate amounts of resources into a tiny, minuscule cost center of the business that is already at market saturation and had no growth potential the stockholders would sue the socks off of you just before trying to get you removed and certified crazy. Think they would have any trouble finding a law firm? And why would they sue? Because you'd be wasting their investment and practicing poor stewardship of a company they own part of. Microsoft's business is the same as every other non-profit business - To Make Money. Not to make the best flight sim that money can develop. They make money by making the best selling software for the price. IMHO every CEO in the nation should have a plaque on his desk that reads, "Don't blame the competition, blame me." Bill Gates didn't point fingers at IBM, he smiled, shook their hands and took their business. IBM has never forgotten that lesson by the way. Right now there is plenty of VC money out there for anyone with a better mousetrap. Just grumbling right back at ya -- ....Carl Frisk Anger is a brief madness. - Horace, 20 B.C. http://www.carlfrisk.com "John Doe" wrote in message . .. I really like scenery in flight simulators for site seeing and exploration and have always wanted more, but FS9/FS2004's generated scenery is IMO the definition of "eye candy" the way others use the word. I guess Microsoft figured it was more efficient to include fake scenery than to increase the realness. I wonder if that is the result of some research on user preferences. Just grumbling. |
#18
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"Carl Frisk" wrote
John, As much as I'm sure I've antagonized you, I've always respected your quiet reserve in your beliefs. Thanks. Anything short of all capital letters, actually. So I took a quick flight over LA and with just a quick look I have to agree with you. Seattle does seem to pack more eye candy than at least LA. I couldn't find the Convention Center for instance, though like I say I took a very quick look. I'll spend more time later checking out the comparative lack of eye candy in LA. However I am not surprised that the MS dev's may have spent more time on their default departure city, After choosing one. just as I believe they did on Chicago when it was home base. In FS2002 I was much more impressed with the Windy City than I ever was with Seattle. I always thought hey they all live or at least work here why can't Seattle be better than Chicago. In FS9 it looks like I got my way so I'm happy at least. I think it is a trend. Redmond/Seattle is now center of the universe as it is known to Microsoft. snip That said I'll say this. Microsoft didn't put any company out of business. Microsoft destroyed Netscape by pushing Navigator off of personal computers. You can read the Findings of Fact on Microsoft for some juicy details on how Microsoft did that and many other similar things. Microsoft tries very hard to either kill or avoid competition. The customers vote with their cash on who gets to keep playing the business game and who doesn't. Note the present tense. This game isn't over yet, it is simply evolving. It isn't about the best, or shoulda, coulda, woulda, it's about giving the customer what they want. The company that plays that game wins. And should win in my opinion. Linux is starting to interest me. I may cross over, after all I crossed over to GEOS then DOS then Windows from the mainframe world many years ago. You had good reason to cross over, and now you are stuck, believe it or not. The game ended years ago, about when windows ran on over 90% of iNtel based PCs. There are phenomenons known as "network effects" and "a positive feedback loop" which are well discussed in the big antitrust trial district court and appeals court decisions. You might find them useful reading. I still think Windows is just now catching up to that methodology BTW. Just as I think Linux is starting to catch up to Windows, technologically that is. And in closing, If you were the head of a major software company and you started dropping inordinate amounts of resources into a tiny, minuscule cost center of the business that is already at market saturation and had no growth potential the stockholders would sue the socks off of you just before trying to get you removed and certified crazy. Think they would have any trouble finding a law firm? And why would they sue? Because you'd be wasting their investment and practicing poor stewardship of a company they own part of. As of September, 2002, Bill Gates owned roughly 1.2 billion Microsoft shares, Steve Ballmer held 470,968,074 Microsoft shares. I cannot find the data, but I would guess that the total shares owned by company managers/employees is at least 30%. Microsoft's business is the same as every other non-profit business - To Make Money. Not to make the best flight sim that money can develop. They make money by making the best selling software for the price. Microsoft would rather not compete, and it has the power to force other companies out of business, which it does in fact do. IMHO every CEO in the nation should have a plaque on his desk that reads, "Don't blame the competition, blame me." Bill Gates didn't point fingers at IBM, he smiled, shook their hands and took their business. IBM has never forgotten that lesson by the way. The best reminder of that so far was when Microsoft refused to ship windows to IBM unless IBM's PCs would include Microsoft Works instead of IBM's own Lotus Smartsuite. Microsoft uses its monopolies to keep competition away. Right now there is plenty of VC money out there for anyone with a better mousetrap. Not according to the United States District and Appeals courts. Just grumbling right back at ya -- ...Carl Frisk Anger is a brief madness. - Horace, 20 B.C. http://www.carlfrisk.com "John Doe" wrote in message . .. I really like scenery in flight simulators for site seeing and exploration and have always wanted more, but FS9/FS2004's generated scenery is IMO the definition of "eye candy" the way others use the word. I guess Microsoft figured it was more efficient to include fake scenery than to increase the realness. I wonder if that is the result of some research on user preferences. Just grumbling. |
#19
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"John Doe" wrote in message
... vastly increasing the development time and cost, What part of $50,000,000,000 don't you understand? WARNING: BASIC ECONOMICS LESSON FOLLOWS Just because they can afford to do it doesn't mean they will. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of the FS customer base DOES NOT CARE about having the exact buildings in their exact locations. Outside of their immediate area, it's not likely they're going to know what every single house looks like anyway, so why bother? Certainly, they have the capability to do it--but the potential increase in sales doesn't offset the expense. Consider, too, the additional processing power that would be required for all of this. Few people have systems that can handle FS9 as it is; what do you think they'll do when every single house, blade of grass, and stalk of corn is modelled? Finally, remember too that there are quite a few who don't give a damn about the eye candy--they just want the physics of flying modelled as realistically as possible and as long as they can read the gauges they don't care how detailed the rest of the graphics are. -- Kurt Weber |
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On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 11:54:38 -0500, "Kurt Weber"
proclaimed: Finally, remember too that there are quite a few who don't give a damn about the eye candy--they just want the physics of flying modelled as realistically as possible and as long as they can read the gauges they don't care how detailed the rest of the graphics are. What he said!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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