Microsoft dumps ACES? And with it the future of the FS franchise?

Big, big news… Microsoft just axed their ACES gaming studio… that’s the studio responsible for, among other things, Microsoft Flightsim.

This is big.

While it’s probably a pretty tough pill to swallow for the ACES staffers (being unemployed in a down economy with a kids and mortgage = Not Fun), Flightsim is as old as Microsoft it self, so it’s a bit of a shocker.

So what’s this mean for the FS2Crew faithful?

Not a heck of a lot actually.

We’ll still be developing for FS9 and FSX.

But we’ll be developing for FSX a lot longer than expected by the looks of things.

In a way that’s a good thing, but in a way it’s also a bad thing.

Having a new version of Flightsim to play with helps keep things ‘fresh’ and ‘alive’, and it helps bring new people into the hobby.

Even though Flightsim for me is mainly just a development tool, I still always look forward to future versions of Flightsim to make the day a little more interesting.

We live in interesting times.

Well, I was wrong

So the NORKs didn’t try to rain on Obama’s inauguration.   The Raptors at Gunsan must have scared them straight, hahaha.

Still, the locals recently appointed some hard-liner to take on the North Koreans (No more Sunshine Policy), and the North Koreans are in an unstable state given that Dear Leader appears to be on his last legs.

Nothing will likely happen except for a lot of silly bluster and maybe the odd skirmish.  The South Koreans have historically exercised a huge degree of restraint with the North, and it would take something extremely major for the South to get drawn into a fight.

It’ll be interesting how things go in 2009.  United States Forces Korea is in the process of re-defining its role in the ROK to assume more of a support role, with the South Koreans basically taking the lead role.  I support this.  The Koreans have historically been a colonized people, and it would be good for their national psyche and sense of confidence not to have to take a subordinate role to a foreign power in the defense of their own country.  It’s their country, they have a very advanced and competent military that is more than capable of keeping the impoverished North at bay, and they should defend it themselves.

Besides, if the NORKs ever invaded (which they can’t because they don’t have any gas and their equipment is broken down), they’d never even make it past the McDonalds in Itaewon before supporting US forces arrived on scene from Japan and elsewhere… whooo-raahhh!!!!

In flightsim news, the Brit voice set for the MD-11 is 99.9 percent done.  Eurozone is almost done.

Really

The Raptors

I think I figured out why the Raptors are here…

We’re holding a bet that the North will try something on Obama’s inaguration day to steal the press..

That would be consistent with their history…  They pulled the same kinda stunt during the 2002 World Cup.

You heard it here first, folks…

Taking the Fight North, whoo-rahhh!

Here’s a cool video of some F-22 raptors arriving at Kunsan Airbase.

http://www.pacaf.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-090110-001.wmv

The guys up North are in a rather unstable state it seems with Dear Leader’s health problems.

So what better way to make sure they don’t try any funny business than to send in the Raptors. “Force projection” is the cute term for it.

If it ever did come to a shooting war with the North, it’ll just be another Turkey Shoot like Iraq probably (at least to the extent the war is fought conventionally).

ROK and USFK forces would wipe them out pretty quick… Woo-Rah!!!

Man, I think I’ve got to stop listening to AFN Radio….  Serving America’s Best… Wooh-Rah!

Released, the FS9 MD11 Version

Today I released the FS9 version of FS2Crew for the mighty PMDG MD-11.

It was a lot of work getting it to work properly in FS9. And of course I couldn’t just do a simple straight conversion, I had to tweak things along the way to make things better.

Some people have asked about a discount for FSX owners. Well, since I have no way of knowing who owns the FSX version (since we sell on multiple sites and I have no unified database), we decided the simplest method would be to offer a 5 EUR discount to everyone.

That’s valid till Friday 16 January 2009.

The Brit and Euro voice set are nearing completion… REALLY!!! I know you probably don’t believe me, but it’s almost here!

Some notable things: Now that the MD-11 is done, we’re going to do some MAJOR revamping of FS2Crew for our next series of products.

We have a brand new and powerful audio engine in development, and we’re also going to be upgrading our e-commerce system to a much newer and better and more powerful system.

The MD-11 also marks the end of the Start Centers. We’re doing away with them as they’re just becoming too complex and onerous. So each future of FS2Crew will have its own config utility.

I hope you enjoy FS2Crew for the MD11!

FS2Crew Corporate Logo Contest!

Get your crayons out, FS2Crew is holding a Corporate Logo contest!

We’re making sweeping changes for 2009, and we need a new corporate logo to match.

First place is $150 worth of FS2Crew product.
2nd place is $100 worth of FS2Crew product.

The contest ends Jan 31st 2009 at 12:00 GMT.

To submit an entry, please email your graphic to FS2Crew at www.fs2crew.com

Good luck!