Carenado abandons FS2004
It was inevitable that this would start to happen at some stage, but I’m sure many others will share my disappointment that Carenado have announced they will no longer be producing aircraft add-ons for Flight Simulator 2004.
This is of particular dissapointment to me. I consider their Mooney M20J for FS2004 to be among the very best aircraft available.
They have made the following announcement:
- Due to some incompatibility issues with some aircraft with SP2/AP, the company decided to develop again its complete fleet from zero to be full FSX and DX10 compatible.
- Each new development will be a separate package specially developed for FSX and DX10 and will have all the new amazing effects and features only achievable with FSX and DX10.
- The company is not developing FS2004 compatible aircraft any more. But will maintain its current FS2004 fleet as it is.
The first aircraft developed is the Piper Cherokee which is already released (www.carenado.com). This aircraft takes advantage of all the new features FSX and DX10 allow like cast shadows on VC, external dynamic cast shadows, normal mapping, specular mapping and bloom lights resulting in a completely new generation of Carenado products.
Fernando Herrera
Carenado
With the introduction of any new version of the sim, development for the previous version always tails off eventually. However, it’s a very different situation with FS2004 and FSX. A vast number of people have stuck with FS2004 and I can’t help feeling this is a mistake by Carenado. I’m sure they have their business reasons for doing so and only time will tell, but they’ve just cut off a huge customer base.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I strongly disagree with your comments. Sales of FSX aircraft have been quite well. When one considers the money lost supporting older titles and trying to develop for two simulations simultaneously (with the issues of doing so) and/or updating models to be compatible… it is a no brainer. Most development teams are not relatively large and do not have the ability to accomplish ALL of this and continue making new aircraft while sustaining their business.
Time doesn’t have to tell. Look at how well some companies have capitalized on FSX, it’s new features (including higher polygon counts, better resolution support, etc).
I think Carenado made a wise choice all things considered. With other developers picking off the areas they once filled, they must move forward or be lost.
Just my $0.02
That’s certainly the other side of the coin, However, I’m not convinced that money is being lost supporting FS9 generally.
A number of sources I’ve spoken to say that they’re still making more from FS9 add-ons than FSX. This may well be because there are simply more add-ons, but they’re still selling. This might not be the case for Carenado, of course.
I’m sure they thought long and hard before making their decision and I wish them continued success, but it does seem a curious decision to me when FS9 is still being used by such a vast number of flight simmers. As I mentioned in the post, the introduction of FSX didn’t kill off the previous version as quickly as has happened with previous releases. In fact, we’re left in the very unusual situation where both FSX and FS9 are “current” as far as many users are concerned and this is why I was curious as to why Carenado would choose to effectively discard such a huge market.
The good news, of course, is that we can expect some superb FSX add-ons from them
Mark
Very good points. Please note I work very closely with numerous FS development teams. From my perspective, the money being made in FSX at this time is generally speaking equal to or greater than the FS9 versions. There are however exceptions to every rule, especially for planes that were initially released for FS9 many years ago.
If people have ever been interested in FSX but were hesitant, now is the time to switch. More and more developers are moving to the FSX scene as expected. There are also some great addons coming out in the near future and PC prices have been going down.
Cheers and thanks for the great conversation!
You’re right, of course. Things always move forward and there will always be a time when the “old” is left behind for the “new”.
I guess the tone of my original post was more about my disappointment at “losing” one of my favourite developers for what is still (mostly because of the ridiculous number of add-ons I have for it) one of my favorite sims
Keep up the excellent video work and do pop back
Mark
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