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Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Next Level Simulations Cancels Airbus 380

FSX. Well, after a long delay it looks like Next Level Simulations has officially canceled their Airbus 380 project. This is a pity as the project did look quite promising. Nevertheless, another fallen development for the flight simulation world. See some project screenshots and the developers cancellation statement inside.

First, a couple screenshots for those not familiar with the project:

 
 
 
The statement as posted on the developers Facebook page:
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Alright, here we go. I am indeed VERY sad to announce that we have to cancel the A380 for the time beeing. Its a very hard descision for me as the A380 has always been somewhat "my baby" and I have been working on it since 2007. But things are moving in a different direction now so I had to make a choice. I was always afraid to give up, having in mind the thousands of working hours that have gone ...into the project so far. Giving it up would make all of that worthless. I am very sorry to disappoint you people here - but I don't have a choice.

To be honest, I wasn't able to continue the project for the last 12-15 months because I have started out with a new business (doing film, commercials, features and 3d animation), I have invested a lot of money into a new studio, camera systems, stuff. That lays great pressure upon me, needing to get the business going. After all, flight simulation would not pay my bills. Not at this point.

I haven't talked to Chris Kögler, the systems programmer for quite a while, which was due to my lack of time, moving to the new office, working long hours - that made it get lost somehow. I will need to talk to him very soon about this descision but I am sure he sees it the same way. The discussion for cancelling the project had been up for quite a while.

So what now? The project had quite a lot of innovations and cool things in it - however, it's still far from beeing completed. The flight model is not done, the 3D model is in the middle of a big revision (wings, flight deck). The systems show a 100% accurate visual representation of the real thing, however, the systems core is virtually not there, due to the lack of a finalised flight model and physics system. Overall, it's far away from a releaseable version.

So why not pass the source files to someone else to continue? Of course, for you as a flight simmer, that would be the best way to go to keep up the hope of flying it one day. However, as a developer, who has put all of his heart and time into it over the past years, it's not that simple. I know, Chris will definetly not give away his source codes, since he has so many innovative and new things in it, that he had wrote/invented that I can understand, that he will not give them away just like that. For me, as a 3D artist it's also difficult, leaving your own work to someone elses hand.

We still have to decide what to do with all the material.

Still, I want to thank ALL OF YOU for the great support over the years. It has always been - and still is - a great motivation. And I am sorry that we cannot fulfill your expectations. However, I hope you understand our points.

Thank you,
Oliver Braun
Next Level Simulations

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See the developers Facebook page - click here
 

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

I swear QW mentioned A380 might follow the 787???

Anonymous said...

Dude, I wanna cry.

Unknown said...

they should release the unfinished product

Anonymous said...

or they should pass it over to some other company to finish it!...SAD

Anonymous said...

This looked very promising and I'm sure someone want to buy their sourcecodes.

Anonymous said...

A terrible shame to just throw away the files like that, some1 needs to take on their legacy....

Anonymous said...

Such a shame that such promising stuff gets cancelled and such mediocre looking stuff gets published:

http://tinyurl.com/paqatxs

It just doesn't seem fair!

Sid said...

Absolutely gutted! I would love nothing more than a PMDG quality A380. But I was at least counting on this as there's not one decent complete A380-800 out there for us and the preview shots of this looked quite promising. Indeed a very sad day! Wish someone would or could take over.

Anonymous said...

This is just it folks, flightsim developing does not always pay the bills, that is a FACT, not even the 'Big ones', please remember this when making derogatory comments, most products only get finished because the developers put a LOT of freetime and LOVE in it sometimes

Anonymous said...

yes this is only the beginning, I forsee many many of these cancellations, people who love this area of the market need to get behind and SUPPORT projects, rather then constantly backstabbing and slagging, as pretty soon there will not be anything being made

Anonymous said...

+1

fridberg said...

DAMN, DAMN, DAMN. I was going to by this A380. Now I'm going to cry. :'(

Anonymous said...

It just doesn't seem fair that you are
judging things you never ever holded in your hands. At least Wilco's 850 will have a (nearly) fully implemented G1000 includeing VNAV.

Anonymous said...

Such as shame as what FSX really lacks is a decent A380. Perhaps Aerosoft might pick this up. I doubt PMDG whould ever work on such a project, at least for a few years anyways. From what I've read in the past, the A380 systems are extremely complex to replicate in FlightSim which is why no one wants to put the sweat and tears into making a good one.
In any case, I can understand why the developper wanted to cancel his project.Let's just hope that someone else might be interested in picking his good work!

Anonymous said...

You need to be one with a strong financial strength in order to develop a decent airbus addon.

Same went down with airsimmers...

Anonymous said...

Another bus bites the dust

Anonymous said...

I would like to see a source.

Anonymous said...

Guys....i can tell you that PMDG are not willing to do an Airbus! Thats for sure. Plus, i understand and respect their choice.....why would you dvelop n aibus when you can develop a boeing?? Thats like comparing a Renault(which really sucks) and a nice german car....come on!

Anonymous said...

So, you are saying we should heap praise upon substandard and half completed products for which developers want to charge a lot of money?

Anonymous said...

If FSX had a customer base of 80,000 - 200,000 (which will never happen) then some developers would be millionaires by now.

Anonymous said...

I can answer that - for the money. A380 or any other decent Airbus model would give PMDG loads of money. Boeing are running short of models, so PMDG should rethink the idea of looking into Airbus-market.

Such a shame that NLS are closing.

Unknown said...

PMDG are Boeing fans, also they usually work closely with Boeing to assure us simmers that their product works and looks just like its real world counterpart. Also they are not running out of models
There is still the 777-200er, 777-300er, 787-8, 787-9, 787-10, a redo of the 747-400
And considering PMDG puts time and effort into each individual model I do not see them moving to airbus any time soon.
I do project that Flight Sim labs will however, cinsidering their series is called the a3xx series, leads one to believe they will eventually have and a380

Unknown said...

PMDG are Boeing fans, and They have a huge fan base of Boeing fans. Also they work closely with Boeing to assure an extremely accurate product. Also they are not running out of models, they still have 777-200er, 777-300er, 787-8, 787-9, and a redo of the 747-400, and 747-8i, and they work hard in each individual airplane model not just the series.Hey are we hanging out today?

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