I've been thinking about taking the plunge, but I still want to review things like Hardware specs and how much upgrades cost. I have heard if you get the monthly deal updates are free and if you buy it, updates are not free? I would rather purchase it than pay monthly. Also I am thinking the monthly is for developement only. 

LM cannot legally lower the price. Else the product would become a general public entertainment product, which is prohibited by the contract they had with MS when they bought the FSX (ESP) engine.

You can either buy it once for all, and pay 500$ once.
Or you can "rent" it (officially, for developping and testing your stuff) for 10$ per month. You get TWO licences for this price, which means you can legally install it on two different computers.
If you want to produce freeware stuff, the rent is OK.
If you want to produce AND SELL payware products, you'll certainly have to pay the 500$.
This sim is intended to be embeded into professionnal training simulators, with moving cabins etc...

Most FSX addons work in P3D.Prepar3D (P3D) is FSX with further corrections, modifications, optimizations, additionnal features and evolutions. Next changes include a full 64bits executable (bye bye, out of memory errors) and deeper usage of the multi-core CPUs.

Perpar3D is, by definition, the future of FSX.

Whatever the reason, when the price is too high, it is too high.

Half a grand only for the barebone sim? And then? Shall we begin receiving hypothetical payware add-ons with a zero to much on their price too?

Not for me. I refuse to soil myself with Flight and cannot afford the migration to Prepar3d... AND I'M NOT QUITE ALONE AT THAT... so we need a third alternative.

Be it X-plane, Flightgear of whatever, we shall see what this third way will be when it will be needed. For the moment, what we have should suffice. Neither FS9 or FSX have not quite finished yet to say their own.

Let us use what we have for the moment and wonder about something else when the something else will be available.

For my way of thinking, $500 equals a; Very Expensive Computer Game!

I cant help reminding myself every time that I am sat in my comfy arm chair, in front of my Computer Monitor Screen, watching a pixel generated "object" constantly in the centre of the screen, whilst I wiggle a game joystick around to cause the pixels in the background to be constantly manipulated to give the the impression that I am flying a real aeroplane through real air...
Of course, I am not. Its just a figment of my imagination, and I am wondering to myself, something of better use that I could put that $500 to...instead... ...!

Its the CFS 2 game...but without the imaginary guns and bombs... ...!

Paul...pretending to fly with FS 2004!....(£25 all-in!)... ...!

Sorry Lads, its all an illusion!... ... ...!

Try telling the Missus that you are about to blow $500 on a Computer Game....Divorce Proceedings in the air?... ...!

To put it bluntly (and I hope I don't offend anyone), I think there is way too much hype for Prepar3d and I don't exactly consider it the future of simulation at this point.  It seems almost comical that people are clinging to this after the flight simming community at large started rejecting Flight and Microsoft's business plan.  Before the wave of negativity towards Flight, Prepar3d wasn't all that talked about. 

But let's consider what Prepar3d is.  It's based on Microsoft's ESP and is largely Flight Simulator X technology.  The difference between this and FSX is that Lockheed Martin is still developing this while FSX as a platform has come to a standstill.  The only development that are being made to FSX are from the community, and while great strides have been made, the platform is still largely stagnant. 

Now, the benefits of continued development is new possibilities.  I believe you can actually go underwater in Prepar3d, which may be a cool perk for the maritime enthusiast.  But, and here is the big BUT, it is still becoming old technology. 

If Prepar3d is going to be the future of simulation, we have to assume that no other flight simming developer out there will be able to best this, which I find highly unlikely, and we also have to assume that Prepar3d would gain more traction from the masses of the flight simming community, which will largely be a factor of price.

At the moment, I don't see anything spectacular that Prepar3d can do that FSX can't do (except for maybe going under water).  The graphics from what I've seen still looks relatively close.  64-bit support might be a perk, but then, I never had memory issues and I only have to add a couple lines to my fsx.cfg to fix most of the outstanding issues with FSX. 

Also, the $500 price tag is way to steep. The intended market for Prepar3d is for the professional user: such as flight training schools I assume.  But then, a lot flight training schools uses barebones X-Plane and FSX as well (which, if I may add, are also approved by government agencies), so it really gets nitpickey when it comes to things that Prepar3d can actually do better.

I've tinkered around with some of A2A's addons for FSX, and with all the engines rumbling, smoke blowing out of the blowers, stall buffets etc, the old sim is already pretty close to my real-life experiences as a pilot.  Same goes for FS9, though my addons for that are not so complex.  There are a few things that can improve the immersion of FSX and FS9, and I don't see that happening when Prepar3d is largely just an improved FSX platform. 

Is it better than FSX?  Probably.  Will it be the future?  I'm pretty skeptical about that.  While I might fork out the $500 if it does bring the revolution that some people are hoping for, my doubts about it are still pretty sky high.   

Edit: Spelling and embarrassing blunders

There is need for clarifications here.

Prepar3D is not the future of simulation.
Prepar3D is the future of FSX, that's all.

The "technology" which is in FSX is not old at all, in fact that doesn't mean anything. We're talking about a platform here, and as a platform, FSX (and P3D) is still way ahead of any other sim currently available anywhere. It allows the most complex sceneries, the most complex planes, the highest level of realism and immersion, and it had an UNLIMITED range of possible features. A2A and VRS prove that everyday.

Now, P3D is just that, and more. More, because it's still being developped. The performance will get much better than the FSX performance. The rendering will get better than the FSX rendering. The feature list will get more impressive than the FSX feature lists. The fact is that P3D still evolves, while FSX can only receive new addons, that eventually bring in new features.... features that can be brought into P3D too. Granted, P3D on a visual point of view is, for the moment, just identical to FSX. However, this might change.

And for the price, once again you have the choice between 500$ once or 10$ a month.

Now, the only "alternative" for FSX... is FSX for the moment. XPlane is far from being ready, but it will happen in a not-so-far future. For the moment, we can wait with FSX.

Steve M wrote on Jan 29^th, 2012 at 6:15pm:


As I said in my last post in the Flight section, that would be my LAST post, but only THERE, since I don't plan to adhere to THAT massacre in the making. Until and unless I'll be executed (read: banned) I'll still throw some rocks in the other sections though.


Fozzer wrote on Jan 29^th, 2012 at 7:24pm:


Well said.


Fozzer wrote on Jan 29^th, 2012 at 7:24pm:


Depends by the missus, I guess... and by your bank account... but for common people with not uncommon bank accounts the outcome is almost never a nice one...

alrot wrote on Feb 1^st, 2012 at 12:04pm:

No Alejandro, not a computer game. A professionnal simulation platform. This is different. P3D is not meant to be fun, it's FSX that evolved to allow even more military features.

Quote:

Not the whole world. Professionnal simulators makers. For example, the guys that produce real-world pilot trainning moving cabins.

LM is not allowed to create an "entertainment game for general public", because of the agreement they had with Microsoft when they bought ESP.