Ladies and Gentlemen,
It’s time for us to have a little chat about our plans for the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator. Initially, I was very skeptical when Microsoft announced their comeback to the flight simulator world back in June 2019. This skepticism was based on the bad experience we had with the failed Flight and Microsoft’s subsequent and complete withdrawal from the market.
As I am writing this, all of my initial negativity is utterly blown away and before we get into the actual topic of this blog post, I would like to spent some time talking about the reasons for this and why I think this should matter to you too.
When you fly Microsoft Flight Simulator for the first time, it will blow your socks off. The new visuals, the flight model, the sounds and the modern UI are a leap forward that we haven’t seen before in flight simulation history and it will set a new standard for many, many years to come. To me, there’s no doubt that this new flight simulator will not only replace FSX, it will permanently draw a big portion of loyal customers from other platforms – like X-Plane, Prepar3D or Aerofly. It is therefore a no-brainer for me to say that Wing42 will jump onto the opportunity of delivering addons for this new sim.
For me as a 3rd party developer, this of course presents some incredible challenges! And as I eluded in the previous blog post, one reason for the extraordinary delay in delivering the Lockheed Vega is that I spent a lot of time and money upgrading our workflow to the latest technology; because, what’s the point of creating addons for the latest sim if you don’t also use the new technologies that become available with it? Most of the prep-work is completed, however as long as there are still some holes in the SDK, there’s still a lot of unknowns. The biggest one for me is the question on how to port our prop-o-tronic physics engine over to the new platform.
And that brings me to our plans for the near future.
Die Lockheed Vega
The first Wing42 aircraft that will come for the new Microsoft Flight Simulator is our good ol‘ Lockheed Vega. We are currently in the process of upgrading her 3d models, the materials and flight model. The Vega will be released as a base pack, without the prop-o-tronic physics engine and thus without the complex system simulation.
While this development is going on, we will finish up the last strokes to get the FSX/P3D version of the Vega ready for full release, with all the bells and whistles we teased you for months.
It will then take some time until I can ensure a reliable port of our extensive simulation code base to the new technology, but eventually, there will be a prop-o-tronic addon for the MSFS Lockheed Vega that will bring her on par with the Prepar3D/FSX version of the iconic aircraft.
Die Boeing 247D
I originally started work on this extraordinary Boeing aircraft as a test-bed for the new technology that comes to use for the next generation of flight simulators. Similarly to the Vega, this aircraft will be released as a base-pack, with a state-of-the-art 3d model, top notch and accurate flight dynamics and great sound.
The prop-o-tronic module will follow as an additional addon at a later date.
There will not be a Boeing 247D for FSX. This is simply to do with the fact that the technology took such a jump with the new simulator, that a backwards compatibility with this 2006 platform is simply not feasible.
Whether or not the Boeing will come to Prepar3D is not ensured at this point. While the materials and textures can be ported between Prepar3D and MSFS, animations, sound and coding would require a lot of time to convert. It will therefore depend on the market whether or not we will spent resources in catering to that platform.
Availability
Our Wing42 addons will keep being available here in our store as well as on simmarket and the new in-game store of Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Prop-o-tronic
The Lockheed Vega for Prepar3D comes shipped with our own physics engine, which we want to bring to MSFS as quickly as possible. However, we will change our addon architecture to better account for different styles of using our addons. In the future, we will separate the enhanced physics simulation that Prop-o-Tronic brings from the actual aircraft. We will be offering a „Core“ version of our products at a reduced price, which later can be upgraded to the full Prop-o-Tronic experience.
Pricing
The following information is not final and does not constitute a binding offer.
We are aiming for the following price policy for the upcoming products:
– Wing42 Lockheed Vega Core version for MSFS: 30 EUR (~35 USD)
– Wing42 Lockheed Vega Prop-oTronic version for MSFS: 55 EUR (~65 USD)
– Wing42 Boeing 247D Core version for MSFS: 35 EUR (~41 USD)
– Wing42 Boeing 247D Prop-o-Tronic version for MSFS: to be determined.
Discounts
The following information is not final and does not constitute a binding offer.
If you get the Core version of any addon and wish to upgrade to Prop-o-Tronic, there won’t be any extra charges. Your upgrade price will be the price of the Prop-o-Tronic version minus what you already paid. So as an example to upgrade the Lockheed Vega Core to the Lockheed Vega Prop-o-Tronic, you’ll only need to pay the additional 25 Euros (~30 USD) to experience our high-fidelity physics engine.
Furthermore, there will be big discounts for customers who purchased the Lockheed Vega for Prepar3D/FSX and wish to upgrade to the new sim. I will talk about the process at a different time.
Conclusion
I hope I covered the most pressing questions about the MSFS and hope you are just as excited as I am for the release on the 18th of August!
Cheers,
Otmar