Jump to content

Orbx 2017 Roadmap

John Venema

By John Venema
in General Discussion

Recommended Posts

John Venema Orbx VIP

John Venema

Posted
Posted

Hello everyone,

 

What a year 2016 has been! My goodness, so much change, so much hard work by the team, so much patience and good grace shown by customers. One thing is for sure, there's never a dull moment with Orbx eh? :D

 

So 2016 saw Orbx be the main sponsor of FlightSimCon 2016, release 18 products including a new FTX region, another openLC region, airports, ports of all our products to P3D 3.x (for free), new developers, new staff, new unified lclookup, new FTX Central and of course, new store: OrbxDirect. Whew!

 

Has it all been smooth, perfect and without issues? No of course not, change comes with a price, and we hope it's a price that most of you are willing to pay. The end game is clear: the best customer experience, the simplest product management, and the continued release of the highest quality FS addons in the industry. We're not quite there yet, but I believe we have made good progress towards our vision.

 

Some are wondering what is the Orbx mission? Is it to be a rich company that dominates FS and just wants to be MegaFS Corporation? Not on my watch. Orbx is about innovation, quality and fostering the best talent. We are far from the biggest FS company in our community. There are other companies that could swallow Orbx up in an instant, such is their revenues and depth of products that span into the commercial side as well.

 

So world domination is not our plan. Doing a good job is, however. I would give us a score of 7/10 for 2016, because I admit some things we did not roll out in the most smoothest and effective manner. We learn, we grow, we adapt. That is the nature of business.

 

So what for 2017 and beyond?

 

Well this is where things get exciting, not only for us, but for you. Let me share some key things to look forward to, whilst at the same time keeping our cards close to our chest. We will keep to our policy of not announcing products until they are in beta (yes, I know - we broke our own rule with ENNK and Cote d'Zur but hey, nobody's perfect :))

 

 

Regions

 

The big one is Germany South. When I say 'big', this will be our biggest region yet in terms of content. 770 airport upgrades! Large areas of photoreal and cityscapes 'lite'. Hundreds and hundreds of POIs with custom 3D models. The usual meticulous attention to detail from Sascha and Holger. Oh, and mountains. Lovely, hilly, wonderful alps and mountains. We love mountains at Orbx and GES will give you a nice playground. Release timeframe? Hmmm, April maybe, possibly May.

 

After GES we will be spending R&D resources on some top-secret projects, see below.

 

OpenLC South America is almost in beta, should be in your hands by the new year sometime. Better data, incredible detail, a whole new continent to explore in glorious openLC detail. Oh, and we'll be making airports in SA as well. Good times.

 

 

Airports etc

 

Let's tackle this by developer shall we? These guys have their own following from you, and you have your favourites. So without giving away too many secrets let's begin with Jarrad.

 

Jarrad Marshall is finishing LOWI Innsbruck, which I think is his biggest and most beautiful project yet. I can't stop flying my beta build, it's that good. And in VR, my goodness it's something special. Jarrad will be in Europe in February on a special project and at the same time he'll be venturing out to take photos. Where? I can't tell you ...

 

Misha Cajic is finishing Santa Barbara which will take a bit longer since he's been spending time in EU with family and friends. Well deserved too, he's been very busy in 2015/16. I'm looking forward to KBSA very much, it will have that classic Misha touch to it. D'Andre Newman from AirDailyX is even claiming developer credits for some water masking, haha! After KBSA Misha has a number of options including KHAF Half Moon Bay, but will also start his university degree. He'll need to balance his time.

 

Scott Armstrong is still working on BuildingsHD. It's gone quiet on that project but he does fly commercially as a pilot so it's not his day job. Do I want it finished yesterday? Of course! Let's see how that goes, I'm looking forward to seeing cities take on a whole new shiny look.

 

Maurizio Giorgi's labour of love Cityscape Cote d'Zur is going to be his focus for many months to come. Some projects need that hand-made care which Maurizio is now famous for after his freeware for OZx and then Canberra. 

 

Alex Goff is now working full time but still actively making great little airports in the New England region. The next one is Block Island which looks just terrific. It will work nicely with Bill Womack's upcoming Nantucket and we hope the attention to the NEM region continues by those guys.

 

Tim Harris is now going solo after years of a successful partnership with Ken Hall. It's good for developers to team up; we've had a lot of fantastic partnerships at Orbx this last decade, but at the same time it's also good to focus on a solo project or two to get new inspiration. Tim is now working on a project on the US mainland. It will be a great destination I promise you.

 

Ken Hall is working on GES for now and casting his eyes to 2017 for a few projects he and I are cooking up. Watch this space.

 

Finn Hansen is our young Norwegian Tornado and I am sure he has his eyes on many more Norway destinations. Together with Tore Stranden (Bodo) and Andreas Hegi (EN??), Norway is going to be the hub of lots of activity in 2017. Why not? It's one of the prettiest regions in the world to fly. We love mountains remember? :)

 

EDIT: Oh what the hell, here's a sneak preview of Andreas's project which is on short finals now:

grass.jpg

 

Marcus Nyberg and Philip Schall are still glowing in the success of Valdez (what an airport eh!?) and are back in southern Europe working on another destination. All will be revealed soon. ESSA's moving jetways have been outsourced to a contractor and we hope to have that patch delivered soon.

 

New developers. We have new developers not yet introduced to our customers who are working on airports in the US, South America and Europe. These guys all have years of development experience and I am sure their Orbx debuts will impress!

 

 

Top Secret Projects

 

Now to the juicy stuff! Next year we have a number of top-secret projects being started. All of these are big budget, big investment, risky, adventurous and a little bit scary for us. I know I am going to sound deliberately vague, but understand we are investing deep into six figures for these initiatives so it's important to keep things within the company for now. Don't worry, I think you know how much we as a team love showing you new stuff, so things will be revealed soon enough.

 

Project A - Massive. A huge investment in new tech, new tools, new apps and new staff. It will surprise many of you, and delight you all. It will focus on both Europe and North America. It will perform like nothing you have experience in your simming life. It will support VR. It will be a VFR flyer's wet dream. It will be sold on OrbxDirect. Oh, and it will be 64-bit.

 

Project D - The evolutionary next step. Another big $ commitment, worldwide coverage, new tech, new experiences, a strong partner and an established record. Oh, and it will be 64-bit.

 

Project P - Our continued commitment to our strongest platform and it has a huge backing. More refinement, more performance, more destinations from Orbx than ever before. An old friend gets better, faster, stronger, bigger. Oh, and it will be 64-bit.

 

Project X - The surprise package. The dark horse. A big $ R&D commitment. Orbx quality where it's needed the most so things finally get to truly shine. Oh, and it's 64-bit.

 

Project O - Introduced in 2016 this will become your go-to for all things Orbx with more stability, more features, better performance, and continued development so it never gets stale.

 

How's that? Obscure enough for you? :ph34r:

 

So let's recap: 2016 was huge, we're growing at over 20% per year in revenues, this is accelerating with OrbxDirect. 2017 sees your trusted developers doing what they do best; delivering quality, reliably good addons that you know will deliver what it says on the tin. 2017 will most importantly see a huge R&D investment by Orbx, new tech, new partnerships and new adventures for us all.

 

Won't you come along for the ride?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Replies 191
  • Created
  • Last Reply
andy1252 Life Member

andy1252

Posted
Posted

Pah! - 64 bit is soooo 2015. When will we see proper 128 bit? - we've waited long enough! (thought I'd like to get in with the first moan <grin>)

 

But seriously . . . thank you for sharing this, thank you and all the developers for all the good stuff so far and looking forward to another year of wondrous new products. It all sounds great!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
pmb Life Member

pmb

Posted
Posted

Thanks John, that's the type of announcements we all prefer to hear. Wishing you and your team all the best and success in your adventures.

 

And not to forget, a Merry Christmas and a happy year 2017.

 

Kind regareds, Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Dadtom65 Life Member

Dadtom65

Posted
Posted

You have done it again John, dam it now every one will be trying to guess what's coming. 64 bit mmm. Anyway before I forget a happy Christmas and New year to every one here on these forums and especially John and the developers. You have all done us proud. Thank you all Derek.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Frankie_2 Life Member

Frankie_2

Posted
Posted

Here's my guess:

Project A is something totally new by Orbx, probably a new simulator? Must be standalone as he stated it will be VR and sold via Orbx Direct.

 

Project D: The new Dovetail Flightsim.

 

Project P: Prepar3D v4 64Bit

 

Project X: X-Plane 11

 

Project O: Further enhancements for Orbx Direct.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
hkterry Senior Member

hkterry

Posted
Posted

Thanks John for your information. Hoping the new 64-bit projects will give the simmers a lot of fun but would also suit the existing airports and regions. Would this means the FSX-Steam will final change to 64-bit. That is my thinking.

 

Kind regards

Terry

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Vora Life Member

Vora

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Helifan123 said:

Here's my guess:

Project A is something totally new by Orbx, probably a new simulator? Must be standalone as he stated it will be VR and sold via Orbx Direct.

 

Project D: The new Dovetail Flightsim.

 

Project P: Prepar3D v4 64Bit

 

Project X: X-Plane 11

 

Project O: Further enhancements for Orbx Direct.

+1

"Project A" would be Aerofly FS

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Vora Life Member

Vora

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Banalisator said:

 

Do you really think Orbx is gonna develop addons for a simulator which hasn't any good simulated aircraft?

 

There aren't especially many 64bit flight simulators around (no matter what your opinion might be about their planes).

Projects A, D, P, X do sound like Aerofly, Dovetail, P3D and XPlane. A complete coverage of all sims.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
dominique Life Member

dominique

Posted
Posted

Sounds very good with two interrogations though

 

- What about an OpenLC Asia that I am not alone to long for ?

 

- Are the 64bit scenery tied to the launch of a P3Dv4 ?  

 

and a regret to see the PNG team disbanding. I couldn't get enough of them strips  ;).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Neil Senior Member

Neil

Posted
Posted

Thanks for the update, wonderful to see a positive outlook for the next year. And why not, the products are stunning, and the development opportunities are there. The move to 64 bit should shake things up, in the development community. It sounds like Orbx is ready, and looking ahead to a very intensive and creative year. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
pmb Life Member

pmb

Posted
Posted

 

42 minutes ago, Helifan123 said:

Here's my guess:

Project A is something totally new by Orbx, probably a new simulator? Must be standalone as he stated it will be VR and sold via Orbx Direct.

 

Project D: The new Dovetail Flightsim.

 

Project P: Prepar3D v4 64Bit

 

Project X: X-Plane 11

 

Project O: Further enhancements for Orbx Direct.

 

38 minutes ago, Vora said:

+1

"Project A" would be Aerofly FS

Congrats, you both *may* have nailed it. And that would be amazing developments indeed. 

 

Kind regards, Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites
CrownCityMisfit Life Member

CrownCityMisfit

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Helifan123 said:

Here's my guess:

Project A is something totally new by Orbx, probably a new simulator? Must be standalone as he stated it will be VR and sold via Orbx Direct.

 

Project D: The new Dovetail Flightsim.

 

Project P: Prepar3D v4 64Bit

 

Project X: X-Plane 11

 

Project O: Further enhancements for Orbx Direct.

 

That's how I read it.

 

Very exciting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
walterg74 Senior Member

walterg74

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Jordan King said:

I wish I had a time machine to just travel into December 2017 and I wake up to all of these!

 

Anyone here experienced in cryogenics? :P

Why on earth would I wanna do that? I would miss out on A YEAR of simming/enjoying what I already have.. and life's short enough as it is...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bernd1151 Life Member

bernd1151

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Jordan King said:

I wish I had a time machine to just travel into December 2017 and I wake up to all of these!

Absolutely, Jordan.  I hope that our wallet can cope with it ;)

 

When re-reading JV's announcement, one of his secret projects A to X is present tense, he does not say: it will be 64-bit, he says IT IS 64-bit. As some have already speculated here, this can only be XP. But didn't you, JV, once say, that ORBX would never develop anything for X- Plane? Our former chancellor Konrad Adenauer was famous in saying: "what can I do, I just got wiser over time"

Link to comment
Share on other sites
hwh86 Life Member

hwh86

Posted
Posted

This is a very comprehensive briefing on what we can expect, thank you JV, it was much needed. Now on the content, it is certainly worth me staying alive over the next couple of years; being eighty six means that every day is a bonus from here on. When the only flying I can do is sitting in an armchair in front of my computer flying low and slow (the only way to enjoy the magic of FTX scenery), old age is not so bad after all. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all at Orbx and to all fellow members of this Forum.

                                                                                                        bell03.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
antonvs Life Member

antonvs

Posted
Posted

Thanks for letting us view into your crystal ball John. The orbx (and our) future look very good indeed. One day when I'm finally too old to keep my PC up with the rate of technology I invisage a time when I can sit down with a yet to be released book titled "The full and amazing story of Orbx"


Anton via Tapatalk Pro

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...