AlphaSim Hunter pics

[Paul K]

Yep, that's the Lincoln I had in FS2002. Pretty good too, if I remember correctly.

[Techy111]

I take it you mean the props don't work in FSX....?



Tony

[Michael davies]

After the previous problems we had with Alphasim, I remember Dan asking to be contacted by PM if you have issues with your product, rather than post them on the forum. I can see where he is coming from, but it does leave the forum as a place to praise the products, not to complain about anything.
Peter is well known, it is suprising that he was not asked to check the Hunter out.

The previous problems were caused by an individual, not the collective of CBFS, if neither side or participents can recognise that, then they deserve what ever grief they impose on themselves.

I didnt stand above the parapet to knock the model or raise issues with it, or attempt to open doors for others to do so, I merely posed the question, if the model was cheaper would it be more acceptable ?.

There are ways to publically post critism, which ever forum you choose, however of late said criticism 'over there' has been taken badly, posted badly and thus some ( quite a few ) feel they cannot do so any more, a recent issue with the Sabre was rebuffed with.....no one here has said anything.....yet it was a common observation elsewhere and easy to see if one left the 'hole' for just a few mins walkabout, yet the home ground is quite stony so it quite difficult for some to be open and honest on the home turf and thus prefer to do that on other turf, its a never ending cylce that needs to be broken IMHO.

However that all gets away from my original can opening, negating DGs Hunter, would the current AS product be better received if it were cheaper, dont get me wrong, l'm not trying to drive AS out of business LOL, far from it, but in eight years l've never seen so much dissent.

AS are about the only commercial concern that is going to atttempt fringe interest models, yet at this rate its looking like closing doors to all but the most concrete of sellers.

Donning my AS hat, regarding the Hunter being produced after GB stuff was publically declared no gratias, my understanding was that it was already in the pipeline.

Regards

Michael

Addendum, though I quote Trev, the post is not based or basing said comments, l'm sure there thought by many but Trev put finger to keyboard and raised them so the quote I think is apt.

[Techy111]

.......Never mind..... ;-)

Tony

[DaveB]

Hi Michael..

I think my previous post was probably too long-winded while trying to cover all points but put simply.. YES.. I'm sure they would be better received if they were cheaper as with most things. Buy something for £30 and it's not up to much, you tend to feel seen-off. Pay a tenner for the same thing and you can ease the disappointment by saying 'well.. it only cost a tenner'. It is always easier to overlook deficiencies in something cheap and cheerful than it is for something you've paid a Kings ransom for ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[AllanL]

Just skipping about the topics, are you talking about Ted's Lincoln? I'm sure that is ok in FS2004.

Anyone asking which Ted should have their Tomtits expunged. (The venerable Cook of course)

On the price issue, I think I've commented before that, as a "on a wing and a whim" buyer of militaria, a price mark closer to £10-15 would tend to unlock the plastic much more easily than £20++. I'm not sure how many more in the market have the same approach, but I wandered out of Game in Belfast this afternoon having bought the VLJ for £6 - having previously thought "naah, too pricey for an occasional plaything". Week willed and pathetic? I am that simmer. :roll:

I also noticed that Eaglesoft have been doing 15% off vouchers through November, Dec and now January. So they obviously think tempting the market pays off.

There was some talk on the A/S forum about an Iris style "Lite" approach to selling models, but it seems to have come to naught.

Without giving any market secrets away, perhaps Iris Dave could comment on whether the Lite sales model has been a success for his business?

[Trev Clark]

I to think that price is way to much, keeping at under 20 pounds (UK) is a good marketing tool in the UK, but having a worldwide market does make this different. When you compare this price to say the Gold Award winning Sibwings Saab Safir (yes it is a year old now and only FS9) it is 20 Euros (that's about 16 quid) .
There seems very little to compare between a nice (but not likely to win prizes) Hunter and an aircraft add-on that virtually re-wrote the book on payware aircraft. How much could Jan Visser charge for his upcoming freeware Sabre, if the Alpha one is anything to go by, he could sell it for 30 quid, easily!

I wonder if we (the consumer) are paying this extra price because the developers are having to make two models (due to pathetic take up on FSX, which is still not the most popular sim despite being around 15 months).

I shudder to think what the Alpha Tornado is going to cost, but as I have no love for the aircraft at all, I am not bothered.What was it that they used to say in retail...stack it high and sell it cheap!

Oh, almost forgot, my 'lite' suggestion did not go down well with the Alphasim painters, who thought I was trying to do them out of work.
I thought, that iIf they sold a 10 pound model of a Hunter F6 and a paint kit, I reccon we would have a whole bunch of super repaints free. My theory was, this would increase sales as people were tempted by thier favorite scheme appearing at Avsim. I wonder how many people went back and purchased an older AS model after that paint maestro 'Pierre' put up some freeware re-paints.

[Kofi]

AS are about the only commercial concern that is going to atttempt fringe interest models,

And it's precisely this facet that makes AlphaSim very different from other payware vendors...

[Paul K]

AS are about the only commercial concern that is going to atttempt fringe interest models,

And it's precisely this facet that makes AlphaSim very different from other payware vendors...

Can't help but agree. So far, the only decent XB-70, one of the greatest aircraft in history, is Alphasim's one. I only have a B-47 and B-36 thanks to A/S, and its not that I bought them 'because they are there'. They were aircraft I genuinely wanted right from the start.

[AndyG]

However that all gets away from my original can opening, negating DGs Hunter, would the current AS product be better received if it were cheaper, dont get me wrong, l'm not trying to drive AS out of business LOL, far from it, but in eight years l've never seen so much dissent.

I understand what you are saying Michael; if DG had never made his Hunters then, yes, I suspect that people would still have been commenting on the price of the Alphasim Hunter but would have bought it nevertheless - certainly I would have done!

But, DG DID make his Hunters, probably one of the most popular freeware addons of recent years, and they still stand up to close scrutiny. Dave set the bar, if anybody wanted to release a payware Hunter they needed to surpass his models - to be fair, it's always going to be difficult for any payware developer to beat a superb freeware modeller working on a labour of love - and in this instance I don't think AS have quite managed it. There is a possibility that it may have an edge in FS X, but I would ask you to look at my avatar!!

A comment I've made here before and also over at Alphasim (and in PMs to Dan and Phil), is that they are in an invidious position, having to cope with talented freeware designers as well as payware companies; BUT Phil cannot really complain about poor sales of "niche" products if they continue to develop product that is in direct competition with superb freeware - the Hunter is a case in point, the Sabre was another (and that was just when competing against Kirk Olsson, when the Visser Sabres arrive who would even consider paying for one?), the Blenheim probably a third (c'mon Rick ;-) ). It's a marketing fundamental, find out what your customers want & supply it; don't supply what you think they want and then complain when they don't buy it! There are people over on the AS Forums going on about how nice it would be to have an AS F-16; frankly I think Phil would be mad to consider it, as the existing freeware product is superb, and the Aerosoft one will likely soak up the FSX market.

I have a large number of Alphasim products, having just rebuilt my PC the biggest job is reinstalling them all!! :doho: I've even been known to buy something when it was not necessarily in my 'core' interest group, but simply because it looked like a nice model and the price was right - the B-36 is probably a classic example of that; but I'm not going to buy something if there is a viable alternative available, or if the price is sensible. Alphasim purchases used to be (almost) an impulse buy, but now I really have to give them serious thought.