Sim Pilot Forum

This thread discusses the Content article: The downfall of Flight Simulator - FSX to blame?

I thought your article was interesting Christan. I agree with assessment on Acceleration. Microsoft was not looking at mainstream users- my cheapo PC will only take a max of 2 GB RAM. I went to a store to look at Acceleration- the requirements noted 4 GB RAM. I believe many users that run FSX successfully have more than 2 GB RAM installed. But with the economy as bad as it is now PC sales are down somewhat and folks aren't able to afford much over food and living costs.

I think Microsoft should have aimed another version of FSX for for more modest PCs, really concentrating on better use of graphics cards versus straining CPU power.

The cost of FSX add-ons has gone up over what I've purchased for FS2004. The new PMDG MD-11 is really pricey for me and I'm sure with my PC performance under FSX would not be good.

Erika

To me, it's fairly clear what brought about the downfall of FSX - Corporate Politics.

The FS franchise was Bill's baby. I doubt it was ever a real profit center. I believe that Bill enjoyed it and felt it provided a showcase product for Microsoft. It is also my understanding that he enjoyed aviation in general, and he and his family were regular customers at Kenmore Air.

Also, here was a product that Microsoft was allowing others to profit from, basically through hacking. True, we all (the customers) benefitted from it, and a whole industry grew up out of it; but I imagine you can imagine how the higher ups at MS felt about this rogue product.

When Bill left, the bean counters were finally allowed to trim "the fat" from MS, and FS was a casualty of that.