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Microsoft's Flight Simulator is going to be free

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Microsoft is certainly doing their bit to be on Santa’s nice list this year, starting early by offering their Flight Simulator title for free this spring. The game is simply known as “Flight,” and you need not fork out a single cent in order to take to the skies. I remember back in the day, a joystick peripheral for the desktop proved to be a luxury purchase for a poor primary school student like me, and I looked on in envy as my friends who were from a higher economic background had the latest joysticks with more buttons than you can throw a stick at. Microsoft’s Flight Simulator also proved to be an interesting game at first, but it certainly lacked the adrenaline rush of X-Wing or TIE Fighter, never mind that the latter two hail from the domain of an overactive imagination that laughs at the laws of physics in the face.

Those who connect with a free Games for Windows Live account will also be entitled to additional free content such as planes, missions, Achievements and an Online Pilot Profile. If you want to further enhance your overall gaming experience, you can always purchase more aircraft, regions and customization options via an in-game marketplace. Good thing this is not one of those apps that leave you frustrated as you cannot progress unless you fork out real world money for it – “Flight” works differently since you aren’t competing with anyone else.

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Nice. Just need to deal with winter first

Cudni

reply to Link Logger
My only curiosity is just how much the simulation aspect has been dumbed down. I've also played it for quite a while since around FS95 and have been more attracted to the simulation than the game. Thankfully that has improved more and more up through FS2004. X though seemed to about-face a little and it makes me wonder how 'Flight' will end up once it is released. Even if it's free, I wouldn't touch it if they dumbed it down to nothing more than the likes of X-Wing or the other flight based games that are simply that: Games.
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I swear, some people should have pace-makers installed to free up the resources. Breathing and heart beat taxes their whole system, all of their brain cells wasted on life support.-two bit brains, and the second bit is wasted on parity! ~head_spaz

reply to Link Logger
Is this going to be something new like newer than FSX or just some abandonware version?

reply to Link Logger
FWIW, the hardcore flight simulation community basically hates this title and is actively campaigning against it. Of course, most of the vitriol may be premature: the pricing structure hasn't been revealed yet...and if Microsoft left the open framework of the product intact, and allows third party developers to do their thing, then Flight could very well be much the same as Flight Simulator in the end. It's not as though previous Flight Simulator titles were all that realistic in their base rendition anyhow. You often have to spend $50+ on a single top quality aircraft (or scenery package) to layer on top of the base itself, but some of these add-ons are extraordinarily impressive in their scope and level of detail, indeed. Those aside, there's a lot of impressive free stuff out there, too.

Nevertheless, it's fairly obvious that the product/brand managers have no idea what they're doing. No matter how you spin it, a civilian flight game/simulator is ultimately going to resonate with the same group of technical, detail-oriented people who religiously bought and used the original Flight Simulator titles. Alienate them, and you're just shooting yourself in the foot. Both feet, even. If we find out that Microsoft has locked this thing down, removed (or substantially dumbed down) the sandbox/open world elements of it, and forces us to go through their marketplace for everything, we will abandon the franchise in droves and this thing will wither on the vine.

Flight Simulator was actually a profitable and popular title (arguably more so in Europe and Japan than in the US itself)...but somebody apparently mis-identified it as an underperforming product with growth potential, rather than a leviathan dominating its own niche market (which it actually was).

As an aside: I'd be considered a "hardcore" simmer (I own the new PMDG 737, for example--and a real world pilot's license), but I always loved the old Flight Unlimited series. While perhaps not as technically accurate as the Microsoft Flight Sims of the day, it had a "feel" and ambiance to it that nothing else on the market at the time could even begin to match. If Flight successfully replicates that approach, it may yet have potential.

This will be the key thing to wait and see on is how much, if any, they decide to lock it down. But if I was a betting man I'd put down a decent chunk of change on them locking it down tight or at least sufficiently enough that the 3rd party addon vendors are pretty much out in the cold and the large part of the community either sticks to existing MSFS products or switches to other products like X-Plane. This is merely based on the fact that they are supposedly making it free AND tying it closely into Games for Windows Live. which if anyone has experience in Microsoft's latest online forays (GfWL and Xbox Live), it's pretty much their way or the highway. Valve wanted to put cross-platform multiplayer from Portal 2 on the 360 but since Microsoft vehemently turned down anything Steam related, that option was kicked out the door.

That said, I will be the first to take it all back and try it out first hand if they decide to surprise me and I certainly hope they do!
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I swear, some people should have pace-makers installed to free up the resources. Breathing and heart beat taxes their whole system, all of their brain cells wasted on life support.-two bit brains, and the second bit is wasted on parity! ~head_spaz

reply to Link Logger
When I was about 12 or 13 I was really into flight simulators, even going back to the Commodore 64 days. I actually knew enough that I would have been able to pass an IFR test.

I was visiting a flight school at one time and my precocious little self was able to answer circles around the students when it came to instrumentation and navigation questions.

I kept it up a little though the days of the first gen Microsoft Force Feedback joystick -- the best input device ever made.

OT: Microsoft's line of Sidewinder hardware back in the day was the best around and arguably still the best. I owned the Force Feedback Wheel (gameport version) back in the day and was an avid racing/driving game fan when I had it. The whole hardware lineup was solid, amazing, and comparatively inexpensive to other brands.
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I swear, some people should have pace-makers installed to free up the resources. Breathing and heart beat taxes their whole system, all of their brain cells wasted on life support.-two bit brains, and the second bit is wasted on parity! ~head_spaz

reply to Link Logger
As an official beta tester for Flight, I can't reveal too much about it because of my NDA. However I can say that the controls I use in order of preference are mouse, sidewinder joystick, and keyboard.

Wait...what? Mouse? Yes, it actually works quite well. MUCH easier to look around out of the cockpit. But when I want more realism, I use the sidewinder.

Mouse makes sense for looking around better. Definitely beats using keyboard or joystick hat switch.
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This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.