Flytampa, Flightbeam, FSDT and 29Palms future products to be P3D4 only

[pracines]

I fully support this decision. Lockheed Martin has proven to be a great friend of 3rd parties.

I have been waiting for this (64-bit) day in MSFS based flight simulation to happen for 15+ years now. FS9 should have been 64-bit the way I see it!

I would also say look out for 128-bit to be upon us before we realize it, of course if world war III does not happen first. VR is expanding, it will quickly mature, and this in turn will require much greater power.

Hopefully the costs of hardware will come down as flight simulation can finally push the limits once again, as it did in the past.

[GAJ52]

I also think this is a great move.

I have only just joined the P3D bandwagon initially with v3.4 then v4.  P3Dv4 with quality addon scenery and aircraft is unbelievable, way beyond what FSX can offer and I thought FSX was the bees knees for many years.

Great move FSDT and I look forward to buying your products for many years to come - for P3Dv4 plus.

[virtuali]

RobertO1035 is not raising the question of the license here.

Well, he has.

He is putting the fact on the table that great sim developers want to support the sim without the license for 99% of consumers. It's not a question! This is the fact.

The fact is, the only license which is might be limited to some users, is the Academic one, which offers a discount to students. The description of the Professional license on LM website says:

The license is available to those that are training, instructing, simulating, or learning.

Haven't we always said FSX is a "simulation" rather than a "game" ? This means that anyone whose intention is to "simulate" or "learn", can use the Professional license.

We could say that, since FSX only had an entertainment license, so it qualified as a "game", was always used in the wrong way, by users not wanting a game and to be "entertained".

In any case, this will be the last post about license discussions. Every further posts on this matter will be deleted, which is the same policy LM has in place on his forum. The question if you can qualify for a certain LM license, is a matter between you, the customer, and LM, so it has no place being discussed here.

Besides this fact there is another issue here. It is called "forcing the end consumers to buy the certain sim".

No, it's called "deciding to offer some kind of product to the market, and taking the risk it MIGHT not sell".

[virtuali]

Umberto, what platform(s) will be supported in KPIT & the new KORD?

This should have been clear from the announcement:

Some of our products that are already very close to release, such as Flightbeam KMSP or Fsdreameam KSDF, will still be offered for FSX too, and we’ll of course continue to support all our existing releases with bug fixes, but the new products we’ll work from now on, will be designed for Prepar3D 4 and future versions.

So yes, KSDF will be our last scenery which will be still available for FSX. Note that, I said "scenery": GSX might still see other updates, even major ones, for FSX, but just because it will take more time to eventually redesign it for P3D V4 from the ground up but, we'll surely add more and more P3D4-only features to it, while still maintaining FSX compatibility.

[sanookbkk]

I totally understand that developers are moving to P3DV4 Only.
P3D license might be expensive but Flight simulation is a passion. If you are not ready
to invest in a product which at least will offer endless possibility to enhance realism then just play "games".

Flight simulation has been stuck with FSX limitations for 15 years thus losing many potential customers.Before you had many freeware sceneries and
tools but much less today as people moved away from an over-aged product which did not reflect today's technical possibilities.

P3DV4 will hopefully bring many new flight sim addicts as it might be a software of his time and not an old soft with a 2006 technology full of limitations.
The more people share our hobby, the more wonderful add-ons we can get as developers would be able to enlarge their customer base
and have more money for R&D, also we might see a surge in new creative and nice free addons as we saw in the good old times.

[bradl]

I totally understand that developers are moving to P3DV4 Only.
P3D license might be expensive but Flight simulation is a passion. If you are not ready
to invest in a product which at least will offer endless possibility to enhance realism then just play "games".

Flight simulation has been stuck with FSX limitations for 15 years thus losing many potential customers.Before you had many freeware sceneries and
tools but much less today as people moved away from an over-aged product which did not reflect today's technical possibilities.

P3DV4 will hopefully bring many new flight sim addicts as it might be a software of his time and not an old soft with a 2006 technology full of limitations.
The more people share our hobby, the more wonderful add-ons we can get as developers would be able to enlarge their customer base
and have more money for R&D, also we might see a surge in new creative and nice free addons as we saw in the good old times.

Here is what I don't get.

The price of the academic edition of P3D is actually ON PAR previous versions of MSFS that were released, and that's at least from FS98 all the way up to MS Flight. When they were released at their respective times, they would have been +/- $5 USD for their particular version, while the previous version was discounted. but even FSX Gold Edition with the Accelerator pack was a $65 purchase here in the US!

So I really don't see what the problem is here.

BL.

[timmo73]

Will Prepar3DV4 scenery work in FSX? I can't afford to get a new high end computer so that will leave me out. I realize things move forward but there are others that are on a fixed income that simply just can't afford a new computer. It's sad it has to end like that but that's the way things are.

[Hnla]

Will Prepar3DV4 scenery work in FSX?

No, that's the whole point of making it P3D only: To take advantage of the features that P3D offers that FSX doesn't have

[timmo73]

I guess people like me will just have to wait. It's too bad but people don't care anyways in this world.

[Hnla]

I guess people like me will just have to wait. It's too bad but people don't care anyways in this world.

You're not alone, I don't have a very good system by any means, It's old and needs new software. I have to turn my settings way down, and in P3D V4 things can get bad. It's just the way it is.

[timmo73]

Well, I think they are jumping the gun too fast. Prepar3DV4 just got released. There are still many hurdles to go over. There's still payware aircraft and scenery not ready yet. I think there should be a choice between FSX or Prepar3D. Not everybody is going to be able to jump into another computer and simulator. I tried Prepar3DV4 and for the recommended settings a computer would easily cost over $1500. Everything is fine fine with FSX Steam but Prepar3DV4 jerks all over the place with my pc. You need a very high end system to even get it going. There's not really a huge change that I saw that makes it even worth it. It's still even more demanding on the pc than FSX. You're going to see a divide there though. There still will be people with FSX-SE. Time will tell.

[virtuali]

Well, I think they are jumping the gun too fast. Prepar3DV4 just got released.

Are you aware we only announced no NEW products will be made for FSX anymore ? Are you aware of the time it takes to do a NEW product from scratch ? It now averages to 18/24 months and, by that time, P3D4 will be not simply "just got released", but on its way to be maybe replaced by a V5, which will obviously be a 64 bit platform, with an SDK way more similar to the V4 one, and more and more different than the FSX one.

So, it would be very wrong and very shortsighted if we'd still release NEW FSX products in 2018/2019. And we are just alerting users in advance, so they have all the time they need to evaluate switching away from FSX.

[timmo73]

What about the Dovetails Flightsimworld? They are going 64 bit too. Like I said you jumped the gun. There will be others that go 64 bit. You're going to have a big problem because it will become divided.

[virtuali]

Prepar3D is a mature product in its 4th version.

DTG FSW is still in early access for its 1st release, and there's no SDK available. When, and if, the product will be released, together with a proper SDK, we'll be able to decide about it.

I know the thread title is saying "P3D4 only", but the real intention was more dumping FSX than supporting P3D4 only. Nothing in this post says we'll never support any other sim, not even in the future.

The only think sure, is that we won't go back to FSX for new products which are in the planning stage right now.

[streichholz]

Great one. I will fully support this decision.