Alphasim to go all civvy...........

[coldwarvet]

Don't know what is happening over there.................but it seems very strange.

http://www.alphasim3.com/forums/index.php?topic=9929.0 :doho:

[Garry Russell]

Well...rumours are just that until proven otherwise.

Garry

[Trev Clark]

It does seem to be an odd rumour, a bit like Ferrari saying they will only make busses in future , if it's true, it will be commercial suicide!

[coldwarvet]

It does seem to be an odd rumour, a bit like Ferrari saying they will only make busses in future , if it's true, it will be commercial suicide!

I thought they already did?
At least it looks as though Kimi is driving a double decker..........! lol

[Fungus_the_Bogeyman]

It does seem to be an odd rumour, a bit like Ferrari saying they will only make busses in future , if it's true, it will be commercial suicide!

I thought they already did?
At least it looks as though Kimi is driving a double decker..........! lol

Remember the Tyrell Chinese Six? You never can be sure about rumours.

[Michael davies]

No smoke with out fire they say ?.

In all fairness Phil has laid some pretty big hints recently....and in times past....that Alphasim will be changing tack, they also said no more UK stuff and that has held reasonably true ( Tornado & Hunter were already in progress ), Alphasim is a business and it'll go where the most funds are, right now the military market is shrivelling up....well to be more exact, people are more careful with there money, its not just Alphasim its everywhere, times are tight and cash is slow to flow. If they do military stuff then it'll probably be high profile well known stuff, they have said for a few years now that fringe subject matters isn't paying its way.

Ohh I see the thread is now gone ?, hmm enlightening whilst it was there, thats a shame as removal only makes the conspiracy hunters think theres more to it than there might possibly have been .

Best

Michael

[John]

uuummm love to know what the thread was before it was removed :-(

John

[Trev Clark]

Maybe (if true), this is another reason to add to my (is this hobby on its way out) topic from last year.

I was brought into MSFS when I saw a product (that may well have included a Phil Perrot Panel) in a shop for FS95 that gave you an AW Argosy to fly. That really got my attention, as I had seen the default (earlier) sim and dismissed it because of the default aircraft having no interest. In FS9, I have just about every aircraft I could hope for, but I for one will not buy a tubeliner off of any company. What on earth could they make that would bring in income? Every base has been covered!

I said it before, what was great about AS was (cheap and cheerful) military stuff, that may have had the odd fault in accuracy, but that could be forgiven for 12 quid. This hobby now feels like plastic kit modelling in the late 1970's, the heydays are in the past!

[Town]

I think because most people travel in a Smarties packet every now and then. If they have the slightest inclination towards flightsim then thats the add-on they will buy. The connesiour will try something a little more exotic.

It's just a matter of making the units sold into profit and how muchh profit you want (or need) to make the subject viable. It would seem to me Alphasim are struggling to match these 2 variables with their military range.

[Michael davies]

John,

In a nut shell some one posted a thread asking if the rumours about Alphasim going pure civil was true, as in any debate you have those with strong opinions asking in the best Queens English "One would like to know what is going on", those in the middle voicing soothing tones, and those saying nothing, as is usual in these circumstances, those saying nothing upsets those saying a lot whilst the middle crowd add more soothing noises. Its like watching water go down a plug hole, getting faster and in ever decreasing circles until its finally gone.

Trev,

Its no secret I believe the halcyon days of FS modelling are over, I've said it often enough....probably drives those still very active insane LOL....but it has, I don't think we can totally blame FSx but it hasn't helped. To be fair FS9 was so good and tweaked so much that any successor was going to struggle. Now in a rare admission that MS might have got something right, I think they did in the past.

In the past we had a sim almost every two years, this was bad for developers as we struggled to keep up and learn new tricks, no sooner had you learnt them then you were forced to learn the new, which meant that we never really got good at making models for any current sim, however with FS9 we were left alone for a good long period and then we learnt and learnt and we taught and taught until we had evolved the sim into something really special, so special that any usurper was going to struggle. So MS had it right in the old days, quick and often new sims kept everyone on there toes and pushed the franchise along, left alone for too long then it became comfortable and entrenched, aka FS9.

So how do MS now break that, easy, no backward compatibility, break that comfort zone and you now once again force developers and users to move on, whether that is by design or by accident it is on reflection about the only way you are going to ensure people to move forward, ie drag them out of there comfort zone.

Getting back to Alphasim and civil operations, many forget that civil tube liners have a massive slice of the market, go to any flight sim show and its tube liners that dominate the vendors stalls and promotion stands, there must be nearly a full hand full of fingers worth of B373s, Airbus's, Boeing's produced by several manufacturers, are they all crazy ?, I doubt it, their there and modelling duplicate models because the market can sustain it. The market seems capable of sucking up as many civil models as you can throw at it, now I'm sure that many here find that hard to follow, but the civil scene is vast compared to the military scene, we are the minority and if we venture to the shop shelf and open market place then military is....well almost un heard of.

So any business man faced with diminishing returns from the military market is going to look at other markets to keep the coffers full and buoyant, its a sad fact that the military scene is getting smaller and smaller, possibly due to the comfort zone offered by FS9 9 there not going to buy new models of existing stock as the one they already have is just good enough thank you very much, or possible because theres a general slow down in sim sales anyway.

FS modelling is like a lake, there are small fish, medium fish and there are big fish, the lake is going through a period of drought, forcing the medium fish into the big fishes deeper water, the small fish still survive around the fringes but the medium and big fish are going to have to fight it out in what little deep water is left. Now whether Alphasim can compete in that environment with there current technology and against well established names only time will tell.

Unfortunately if they do devoid themselves of military stock then theres little to take up the slack, certainly not for FSx, there are few and far freeware developers to soak up the loss, a few commercial vendors filling in the void, but Alphasim for all there price hikes, slightly wrong models, were at least highly prolific and sustained a section of the market than many welcomed. One could say that there almost a victim of there own success, too much, too fast ?.

Best

Michael