The Death of Microsoft Flight Simulator
The future of Microsoft's decades-old Flight Simulator series is uncertain after reports that the entirety of the Fight Simulator staff has been laid off.
community [http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulatorX/] of hobbyists. I have respect for my elders, and Flight Simulator is older than me: having been in continual development since 1982, it's technically Microsoft's oldest product for the PC and likely the longest-running franchise in the games industry as a whole.
Which makes it all the more bizarre to think that Flight Simulator may be no more after wrote [http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21981] on his blog.
Twitter updates from associates of the Flight Simulator team are saying that the layoffs took place yesterday. The cuts come as part of a planned 5,000 layoffs at Microsoft, the first wave of which is reportedly slashed [http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1836] 30 percent of its game testers team, according to VentureBeat. And the shakedown seems to be far from over. "Also, next week, the game group is expected to undergo a management restructuring," VentureBeat wrote.
Fans might take heart, however, that the death of Flight Simulator isn't completely set in stone. Boomtown [http://pc.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=17328] contacted Microsoft for confirmation of the layoffs, and, after receiving a "no comment" response, received an email: "We can say that 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."
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The future of Microsoft's decades-old Flight Simulator series is uncertain after reports that the entirety of the Fight Simulator staff has been laid off.
community [http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulatorX/] of hobbyists. I have respect for my elders, and Flight Simulator is older than me: having been in continual development since 1982, it's technically Microsoft's oldest product for the PC and likely the longest-running franchise in the games industry as a whole.
Which makes it all the more bizarre to think that Flight Simulator may be no more after wrote [http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21981] on his blog.
Twitter updates from associates of the Flight Simulator team are saying that the layoffs took place yesterday. The cuts come as part of a planned 5,000 layoffs at Microsoft, the first wave of which is reportedly slashed [http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1836] 30 percent of its game testers team, according to VentureBeat. And the shakedown seems to be far from over. "Also, next week, the game group is expected to undergo a management restructuring," VentureBeat wrote.
Fans might take heart, however, that the death of Flight Simulator isn't completely set in stone. Boomtown [http://pc.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=17328] contacted Microsoft for confirmation of the layoffs, and, after receiving a "no comment" response, received an email: "We can say that 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."
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