HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY FSX!

[Drawyah]

Well then, this one was coming...

On October 10th 2006 Microsoft released FSX to the world for the first time, changing Flight Simulation forever! (Then it kinda just stunted and no new games were released for 9 years apart from the odd flight simulator that was pretty 'Meh.'

https://youtu.be/MoXqcUQtUjM

(Oh, and X-Plane 11 releases in November. http://www.x-plane.com/)

[Drawyah]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

I'll PM you.

One more bit about the Evangelists...

What I recall was that they were involved with development, but they were also very strong with interpersonal skills and loved to travel and meet people. Apart from PR stuff, they'd go to malls, conventions and airshows and demo FSX.

The FSX SDK has a feature called "kiosk mode" where you can set up the game to play one mission over and over. It was intended for museum displays and stuff like that, and it made setup foolproof. You know what a chore it can be to set up FSX, so that's a big feature.

So that's what Kiosk Mode is! I always remembered seeing it as a kid and never clicked it. I always however thought "Kiosk, Kiosk, Camera, this is some sort of Screenshot mode!" Guess I was wrong.

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

I recall seeing the Evangelists and their booth at a local airshow. They were intentionally rigging FSX to the XBOX controller, since they wanted to cross-promote the new XBOX. Microsoft already had a game controller out at the time called - are you sitting down? - the Microsoft Game Controller. It was similar to the XBOX, but it had way fewer buttons and it was designed for PC. It didn't have rumble, no analog sticks, just a D-pad, two triggers and six buttons. Well, despite the MGC being pretty new, it was shelved in favour of the XBOX, which honestly is a great controller, way way better than the MGC. Mine has to be about ten years old since I picked it up just before FSX, and I got it directly from an Evangelist.

Eh, yeah. My original Xbox controller lasted me about 8 years until I tugged on the wire a little too much. I'm now happy with my modded Xbox controller, PowerA Air Flo. :3 (If you do search it, look at the discontinued Xbox one, not PS3!)

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

Wow, that reminds me of another piece of trivia, I nearly forgot about this. I'll have to look this up, but in central Washington State in FSX, fairly close to Leavenworth, somewhere in the dry flats between Wenatchee and Chelan, there's this big concrete X with a viewing stand next to it. Verrr-ry mysterious. Anyways, as I recall ACES told me that it was going to be an air racing theme park, but it never got built. The park was supposed to be for... the XBOX version of FSX. Cue X-Files theme.

Microsoft were really going to put the funding in for a Theme Park?! Now I want to go to MS Vista Village! :D

[Twelvefield]

No, a theme park in FSX, not a real one. If you fly out that way in FSX you should see the thing, but of course there's nothing that way but flat dry land.

[Drawyah]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

No, a theme park in FSX, not a real one. If you fly out that way in FSX you should see the thing, but of course there's nothing that way but flat dry land.

Ooooohhhhh. Ok, glad I left that bit out of the article! :3

https://www.microsoft.com/Products/Games/FSInsider/news/Pages/BlogExcerptMVPVisit.aspx
Shame you never got a chance to release the Mallard Duck addon! 😉😂