The first addon for Flight has been released by FSWidgets.

A free moving map for Flight is available on the downloads page.

http://fswidgets.com/shop/index.php

cheers,
Joe

My ears might perk up when i see something along the lines of a freeware Buck Rogers Thunderfighter, a Last Starfighter Gunstar or a Mountain Banshee

Boikat wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2012 at 7:57pm:

Sadly enough there won't be any addon aircraft unless you count the ones by M$...

JoBee wrote on Mar 24^th, 2012 at 9:29am:

Actualy,they SAID that there won't be any freeware addons,all addon traffic will be controlled by them...

I am not sure if MS will allow that addon,but its a seperate program so its confusing.

Joe,

Aside from other possible sources of this information... . Pete (our host and webmaster) was invited to a Microsoft event pre-release of Flight. 

That information was specifically told to him and the other people Microsoft invited to attend.  It was posted in a thread directly by Pete.

But one has to also account for the fact that Pete was specifically told that the game (and they stressed that fact too) was going to be HAWAII ONLY.  Nothing else.  Period.  So with recent info on possible other segments of the world, it is looking like they likely "fed a bill of goods" to a number of prominent flight sim folks at that event.

best,

...............john

I am not defending Flight so much as trying to stay informed.

In doing so, time after time I have read posts by people with no inside knowledge passing along erroneous info.

I read that interview and nowhere in it does J. Howard say there will be no third party addon content.

In fact he leaves the door open for just the opposite.

When asked specifically about 3PD he says...   
"Today, as we’ve said before, we are not in a position to enable that kind of external support, though we believe we will be able to in the future. However, we are working on ways to partner with other developers. As we get an ever better understanding of what the Flight customer wants (as opposed to what customers of the previous franchise products want), I see us meeting those needs through both internal and external development."

Seems pretty clear to me.

cheers,
Joe

Yes I was told in December there would be DEFINITELY NO 3rd party content. It seems they are changing their minds a little - probably in reaction to feedback. - But if they are changing their minds it is since release and ongoing ....


However the policy was definitely in house only .......

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/interview-joshua-howard-microsoft-flight/091961

Quote:

Q. Obviously there are several publishers who’ve been producing and selling content for Flight Simulator games who’d love to be on board with Flight. Is it still the case that Microsoft will be keeping all the DLC in-house?

JH.

Q. Why are you initially shutting out third-parties?

JH.

Well I still haven't seen anything that says there will never be any third party content, in fact everything I have read leaves that door open.

Does anybody remember the challenges created by the FSX service paks?

Did any of you have any problems with your addons after you applied sp2?

Did any 3PDs have to scramble and produce patches for their pre-sp2 releases so they would work with sp2?

Did any of those 3PDs make any money off of those patches?

Can you honestly say that you believe Microsoft is not aware of all the distress that sp2 caused?

The biggest difference between Flight and all previous MSFS releases is the distribution model.

With Flight there is no need to release service paks, any needed core updates can be applied automatically when you launch Flight.

So maybe Microsoft will open up the 3PD market after it is happy with how the core works and confident that there will not be any major patches required.

Another point to consider is that right now there is no ATC, only basic navaids, and a few islands in close proximity to each other. Do you think PMDG has any interest in building a 747 for that?

As time goes on we may see, for example,  an ATC that actually works in Flight. I think most will agree the default MSFS ATC has never been anything to rave about. With the Flight distribution model you could conceivably fire up Flight tomorrow and , bam there it is, working ATC. The fact that Microsoft has not told us anything about it could be they do not want to create false expectations about something they cannot predict, a release date of a finished product. 3PDs do that all the time.

Maybe, just maybe, they are being coy about opening up the 3PD market because they do not want to build false hope in something that they cannot guarantee today.

Lastly, does anybody here work for a company that advertises "here comes our next product, but don't bother with it 'cause you won't like it"? That would be, in my opinion, a poor marketing strategy. The folks in Redmond are smarter than that.

And Dave, you're right, Microsoft is in it for the money. I own a business and I am in it for the money too, who isn't?

cheers,
Joe