Microsoft Flight in Beta. UPDATE: 'Flight' will be free

[Dominato3r]

UPDATE: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397774,00.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/

I've spent hundred of hours on FSX so I can't wait for this. Go to the news section on the website and it should be the first article. You'll need a hotmail account to signup.

 

[exar333]

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/

I've spent hundred of hours on FSX so I can't wait for this. Go to the news section on the website and it should be the first article. You'll need a hotmail account to signup.

Thanks for the heads-up on this; just signed-up. This game looks like a lot of fun!

 

[Nintendesert]

Damn it looks gorgeous. Signed up for it, I wish I had a great Eyefinity setup for it. At least I have a joystick though!

 

[DominionSeraph]

Thanks for the heads-up on this; just signed-up. This game looks like a lot of fun!

If it's anything like the Microsoft Flight Simulator I had back in the day (1999?), there's nothing resembling a game in it. It's a pure true-to-life simulator, and there's not much to be had outside of learning the minutiae of flying a real plane. So if you want to learn to navigate by VOR/DME without spending $150/hr then it would be right up your alley. If not, it's pretty boring.

 

[terry107]

Thanks for the link. Sent it to my dad - he's a huge flight simulator fan.

 

[stahlhart]

Thanks much for the heads-up!

 

[linthat22]

If it's anything like the Microsoft Flight Simulator I had back in the day (1999?), there's nothing resembling a game in it. It's a pure true-to-life simulator, and there's not much to be had outside of learning the minutiae of flying a real plane. So if you want to learn to navigate by VOR/DME without spending $150/hr then it would be right up your alley. If not, it's pretty boring.

You know, my dad who is retired Air Force and has been a private pilot for lord knows how long, he loves this series. He'll be 74 in a couple days.

He complained about Looking Glass's flight simulator and always goes back to Microsofts.

Maybe it's just enough to keep them old private pilots happy?

I don't know how many times I've called him to see what's going on and he says, "oh, I'm just flying from Amarillo to Athens. Let me tell ya, the ground looks real good!" Reminds me of people talking about how real the water looks in the latest released RPG.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Mind = blown

 

[Kalmah]

I was under the impression that Microsoft closed their studio for making flight simulator so therefore no new ones. I could swear that was news some years back.

 

[WT]

Add a pair of 20mm cannon and quad .50's and I can finally dust off the old MS Force Feedback Pro stick !!

 

[exar333]

If it's anything like the Microsoft Flight Simulator I had back in the day (1999?), there's nothing resembling a game in it. It's a pure true-to-life simulator, and there's not much to be had outside of learning the minutiae of flying a real plane. So if you want to learn to navigate by VOR/DME without spending $150/hr then it would be right up your alley. If not, it's pretty boring.

I am not looking for an arcade-style game. If it wasn't fun, I probably would not be playing it. I spent a lot of time with both combat flight sims and just flight sims. Flying a pretty simple plane is a blast, and that's what I want out of the 'game'.

 

[Slimline]

Signed up! I'm stoked.

 

[Dominato3r]

Damn it looks gorgeous. Signed up for it, I wish I had a great Eyefinity setup for it. At least I have a joystick though!

The stock terrain looks awesome and will only be better once the mods start coming out.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Sweet! I thought the franchise was dead and buried, glad I was wrong!

 

[InverseOfNeo]

Any recommendations for a flight sim joystick?

 

[The Boston Dangler]

it's about time someone made a game for 2011-2012 machines...multithreaded, 64-bit software. too bad i'm not really interested in the game itself, but i understand why some people love it.

 

[Dominato3r]

The Flight Simulators have always been very advanced for their time, though FSX didn't make much of a change for FS2004. Once the game is out and the mods start pouring in things will look even better.

 

[Dominato3r]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397774,00.asp

Free and will use Games for Windows Live (Obviously). Additional content will probably have to be bought (airplanes etc)

 

[WT]

Probably ??? Haha, c'mon man, this is Microsoft we are talkin' about !! They expect that island of Hawaii to get boring quite fast and drive the players to new maps and content.

I think I could actually live with it as it was if I could get my MS FF2 joystick to work properly with Win7. Would it kill MS to implement the driver providing force feedback for this joystick to Win 7 ?

 

[mmntech]

So, you're just limited to Hawaii, and only a small slice of it? Lame. The beauty of Flight Simulator was being able to fly anywhere in the world. I don't think it will win over diehard sim enthusiasts.

 

[WT]

From the article:

Naturally, with a free-to-play model, additional content will cost additional money. At launch, users will have the option to buy the entire chain of Hawaiian islands to fly over and explore - but players won't be able to strike out for the mainland, as fuel is modeled, too.

However, Howard would not disclose the pricing of the additionla content. Additional planes can be purchased, as well as additional challenges. So far, the model does not include ads.

 

[power_hour]

Alright I will give it a shot. I do miss FSX. Maybe do a few flybys on the beach and see if there is anything going on ;-)

 

[drizek]

Awesomesauce. I was really bummed when thy killed off FS.

 

[videogames101]

I'm hooked on DCS titles now, combat is just too appealing.

 

[Anteaus]

I'm not sure that we are getting all the information, at least to how extensive the product will ultimately be. All we know is that they are releasing a small region to fly in for free. For all we know, this could just be a precursor or demo for a much larger project that is still 1-2 years from release. The MS Flight website has not exactly been a gold mine of information. They went from merely admitting the existance of MS Flight to saying they are going to have some sort of flyable area soon. Maybe I've been living under a rock, but I haven't seen any interviews or third party coverage yet.

The good news is that FSX has legs and tech is finally catching up. It's still a pig from an optimization stand point, but it's about as feature rich as it can get for the moment and some very high quality payware addons have been release and are planned. Hopefully we will have a better answer for a FSX successor in the next couple years, either from Microsoft or possible another developer.

In the mean time, I finally ordered my Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS so I'll be knee deep in BS2, A10 and FSX/PMDG 737X for the forseeable future. I'm a happy camper.