Sunday September 18th.
Exclusive Airdailyx.
1°) Airdailyx : Orbx keeps releasing more and more airfields for NA BLUE Pacific Northwest.
So we assume that you have found a solid community of customers for this region.
Question is : How can you deploy now some of your developments in Pacific Fjords, NRM or CRM products ?
So we assume that you have found a solid community of customers for this region.
Question is : How can you deploy now some of your developments in Pacific Fjords, NRM or CRM products ?
John Venema : We are now working on a bunch of new airfields for Pacific Fjords, NRM and CRM. We still have a number of airports nearing completion for PNW but those will be the last ones for some time as we move our attention to the other North American regions. Bill Womack is also working on an east coast airport.Copyright Airdailyx september 2011
2°) Airdailyx : Orbx has (temporarily) stopped heavy airports developments but do you consider possible and profitable to design some mid-size airports in USA/Canada ? For instance, Boise Idaho would have been a perfect airport to help launch of CRM. What is your opinion ?
John Venema : We just won't invest the time and money making large airports anymore, it's just not part of our core business these days. It is something we will revisit in the future perhaps. Boise would be a great CRM airport and we may look into it if it falls into the medium category. Also, expect to see other companies making heavy airports within our NA regions. We have already been contacted by one company about a heavy PNW airport.
3°) Airdailyx : Some designers opinions are laudatory on X-Plane 10. From what you know about X Plane 10, do you consider there are still (too much) hindrances or limitations in its architecture and programming for Orbx to develop a large scenery like NA BLUE/GOLD ?
J.V. : We're watching X-Plane 10 for sure, but we have no plans to port to it at this stage. You have to understand that we have invested millions of dollars building our tech on the FSX architecture, so we will only port to a platform which has a large enough audience to make it worth our while. Besides, I think Austin makes far, far more money from his iOS sim toys these days, than anything he makes from XP PC.
Copyright Airdailyx september 2011
4°) Maybe you already answered this one. On my opinion, PeopleFlow is a mature technology. Is there any chance that Orbx could license this technology to other designers in the futur ?
J.V. : No, we don't license our tech, only the rights to use our scenery. I don't think many companies would license a tech which is a differentiator or competitive advantage. However, I am sure now that Orbx has shown the industry that customers really love airports that have "life" with animated human characters, that other companies will now follow our lead and offer similar products, or even products which allow customers to place people anywhere in their scenery.
5°) Airdailyx : With the slow agony of FS9/2004 and all the uncertainties around FLIGHT, do you think that FSX will now live - at last - its great apogee ?
John Venema : Flight is not what people are expecting, it won't compete with FSX at all, it's a completely different sim category. FSX is the serious sim platform for the hardcore and will be for at least 5-10 years, and certainly hardware is now capable of overcoming most of the shortfalls of the code. We are also very excited about Lockheed Martin's PREPAR3D, which is built on FSX and has a bunch of ex-ACES guys fixing all the major bugs and making it work with today's CPU/GPU hardware. We are waiting on some new pricing models to emerge and then it becomes a serious alternative platform for Orbx and its customers.
Copyright Airdailyx september 2011
Gratefully from Airdailyx. thanks for your time John !
J.V Biography : John Venema is born in a family of pilots and instructors, John finally learnt to fly ultralights. He deployed his energy and marketing skills to develop a true community of scenery designers with men like Stephen Stever, Matt Tomkins, Martin Henare and many other people.
Resources from Christian Stock, ex-Simpilotnet.com (please make comment or send email to Airdailyx@gmail.com if this photo is claimed or has a credit. If so, it will be definitely removed.
7 comments:
Great read. Thanks Dom & John.
I love this site.
I wonder who is making the big PNW airport?
'Flight is not what people are expecting, it won't compete with FSX at all, it's a completely different sim category. FSX is the serious sim platform for the hardcore and will be for at least 5-10 years, and certainly hardware is now capable of overcoming most of the shortfalls of the code' I like Airlines; so looks like I am sticking with FSX then...
"You have to understand that we have invested millions of dollars building our tech on the FSX architecture, so we will only port to a platform which has a large enough audience to make it worth our while".
WOW, this is the first time I hear of a developer investing MILLIONS of dollars on a sim. This is something hopefully he could further expand.
I rank Venema alongside Matthias Kok from Aerosoft as managers who speak their mind and tell it like it is without fluffy PC language. He has built a solid company with many loyal customers because he delivers on all his promises and their products are very solid and reliably high quality. A great interview Dom!
"WOW, this is the first time I hear of a developer investing MILLIONS of dollars on a sim. This is something hopefully he could further expand."
Sure. We began developing FSX products back in 2006 and we have spent about $2m on development costs including salaries, contractors, licensing source data, R&D, offices, equipment, leases, loans, interest, taxes ... etc. We are a 60+ person organisation that costs a lot of money to run. So two mill is actually not a lot of money for five years of development really. I think the problem is that for too long the FS industry "thought small" and was mainly people working from a bedroom and thinking selling 100 copies of anything was succesful. Those days are long gone.
Aerosoft need to learn a thing or two about some of thir DEAD sceneries...devoid of life and activity..try flying around their Maldives X scenery and you wont see a single soul!...making that add-on a lifeless and boring experience...contrast that to orbx's great people and nature flow at all their sceneries or Fly tampas st martins etc and see what can be achieved with a little more effort and imagination...John Venema and Orbx are slowly transforming FSX into an awesome simulation!..keep up the great work John and thanks!
Thank you so much for all the messages between the lines regarding MS flight. Now I feel vindicated with my FS-strategie.
And as one who has all of your sceneries and airports I just wanna say tanks again for your stunning and outstanding work!
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