[StarTrekMike]

I have been keeping a eye on SHO since it was announced, the idea of a free to play MMO version of one of my most beloved franchises leaves me feeling pretty depressed but I think that the bigger problem is that it is setting itself up for failure.

We only need to look at Microsoft Flight to see how this is all going to go.

While I know that Microsoft Flight was not a MMO, it was a free to play game and does perfectly reflect the kind of trouble that SHO will have to deal with, you see, Microsoft was banking on the idea that Flight was going to be a success because it was more accessible and friendly to the casual or non-gamer types, this is fine on paper but the reality was far from ideal.

When it was released, Flight was met with anger and derision from the Flight simulator fanbase that Microsoft had built over many years of consistently good releases (not perfect, but good) and many of those hardcore fans are still playing FSX and have invested much more than the initial purchase price since it's release (third party aircraft, addons, peripherals and even DIY cockpits!), these are the fans that were clamoring for a new FS title and Microsoft decided that their input was not in line with the current needs of the average gamer.

The Flight developers (or at least those who were in charge) made it very clear that they were not going to make the game for FSX fans, they even tossed thinly veiled insults at the FSX community due to the negative response they were getting when it was first announced, this should have been their first clue.

When Flight was released, it contained two aircraft and part of the island of Hawaii, I downloaded it, tried it out for a few hours and uninstalled it, many others did the same.

Flight was designed around the idea that Microsoft would release individual aircraft and terrain packages that would cost between $10 and $20 each and that the fans would buy this stuff in droves.

But there was no mad rush, no huge untapped casual flight sim market, they had banked on the idea that the casual gamer wanted a flight sim and that they would also spend large amounts of money on what could have easily been released as a complete product anyway, there was no market for Flight.

Of coarse Flight had it's online supporters, those who were glass half full about it and played it in hopes that it would get better, but it's small fanbase was simply not enough and they had to close the doors.

Here is a lesson for SHO, they cannot tap a market that does not exist, sure a few folks will stick with it and support it but not enough, we know this because pretty much the whole subsimming community is found here, on subsim.

We know what Subsim thinks of this game, so we know what kind of response to expect.

I know that I have rambled on about MS Flight for awhile here but I think that the recent total failure of Flight is a good indication of where SHO is headed.

I will give it a try, perhaps even give it a week to see how things go but I don't think (from what I have seen and read about) that this is the kind of thing that we are really going to be interested in and I doubt that a market exists (those who never knew they wanted a free to play WWII subsim) outside of our community.

Flight was the last words of the famous Flight Simulator franchise and I believe that SHO will be the last words of the once great Silent Hunter franchise.

Shame it had to end this way.