[Jeff]

So the "successor" to Flight Simulator X, the long time 30 year franchise from Microsoft has been put to rest. It's unfortunate, but I kind of saw it coming. Not sure how many here actually use flight simulators, but I thought I'd post this anyways. Although I'd call Flight an arcade sim, rather than FSX which is a full simulator, capable of planes which mimic real life aircraft, procedures and flight dynamics.

Microsoft Flight cancelled

[Fox Mulder]

Microsoft seems to be on a trend of making unfortunate decisions lately.

[Jeff]

In the past Paul Allen and Bill Gates were huge aviation enthusiasts. Probably why the franchise has lasted so long. Steve Ballmer is quite the opposite.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

Ballmer's trying to Apple-fy Microsoft in a desperate attempt to keep up with the Joneses, in doing so ostracizing Microsoft's core userbase.
Although it's sad, I hold confidence that some other company will try to fill the void left behind.

[MusicallyInspired]

Why can't people just break new ground instead of copy-cating everybody?

[Kathy]

Because you can break the ground only so often.

[Jeff]

Flight could have lasted longer, however, Microsoft did not want to release an SDK for Flight as they did release one with FSX (aka mod tools). They also did not want the third party developers to have anything to do with them.

Flight was initially Hawaii only, and if you wanted other areas (they released an Alaska addon), you had to pay money for it. With FSX, you got the entire globe included in the base package, not to mention altitudes up to 100 million feet (30,480 km). Essentially in outer space

[Mr.Deviance]

Fox Mulder, on 08 August 2012 - 02:58 AM, said:

Microsoft seems to be on a trend of making unfortunate decisions lately.

Are you thinking about windows 8 by any chance?

[Fox Mulder]

Mr.Deviance, on 12 August 2012 - 12:07 AM, said:

Are you thinking about windows 8 by any chance?

It was just a generalization.

[Mr.Deviance]

Fox Mulder, on 12 August 2012 - 12:42 AM, said:

It was just a generalization.

I know but I believe windows 8 to be the best example at the moment.

[Fox Mulder]

Mr.Deviance, on 12 August 2012 - 12:59 AM, said:

I know but I believe windows 8 to be the best example at the moment.

Of course.

[Jeff]

Microsoft announced today that they are pulling the plug on support for FSX. That doesn't mean you can't activate it anymore. Just, if you want to phone up MS for support or other issues, it's kind of too late. Luckily, there's lots of FSX support sites that aren't run by Microsoft.

[Kathy]

No, end of support mainly means there won't be any patches and new features. I don't think many people cared about phoning MS.

Besides, could you provide source for this information about end of support? Because I couldn't find any.

[Jeff]

Quote

In an email sent to a variety of flight simming sites today, Microsoft announced that Customer Support for FSX has expired. In the announcement, Jennifer Paige, Community Manager for Microsoft Studios said; "Customer Support for FSX has expired here at Microsoft. What does this mean? We will no longer be answering support emails or hosting various updates and download files for the FSX product. Why has it ended? It simply ran its course, all products will hit a support expiration at some point, FSX has hit that date." Microsoft will announce the closure of support in the XBOX forums and will provide links to the various community sites for fellow flight sim enthusiasts. AVSIM will be one of those sites.

Wasn't really an article, more of a note sent to someone.