It's a sad day for Flight Simulator enthusiasts

Dr Zaius

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Microsoft is experiencing tough times and its games division has been hit particularly hard. 5,000 Microsoft employees are to be laid off, with 1,400 being cut immediately. This marks the first time ever Microsoft has laid off employees due to an economic downturn.

Included in this layoff is ACES, the development team responsible for the venerable Microsoft Flight Simulator series. This announcement has been reported on AVSIM and Flightsim.com and has been confirmed by IGN.

The Flight Simulator community is one of the most loyal and dedicated in all of gaming, and it would be truly devastating if this marks the end of all MFS development. The entire flight sim community is currently in a state of uproar over the announcement with some predicting the termination of MFS could spell disaster for the entire community, virtually killing off a large portion of the third party development houses that thrive by crafting quality add-ons for the simulator.

So does this spell the end for MSFS? According to Microsoft, "We are committed to the Flight Simulator franchise which has proven to be a successful PC based game for the last 27 years. You should expect us to continue to invest in enabling great LIVE experiences on Windows, including flying games, but we have nothing specific to announce at this time." Still, this ambiguous statement has done little to quell the unrest in the sim community.

Let's hope Microsoft will find a way to allow MSFS to continue.
 
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