Developement in and demands from software drives the developement of hardware. That's how it's been since the dawn of computers.

That's fine if you don't want to sell any copies. The difference is that I'll warrant most of those were playable on an average system at launch without major problems and loss of stability. Which is the real shame about CloD because on systems that can handle it, it's the best looking flight sim out there. I'll be interested to see how close the new project gets in looks.

I can't see Cliffs of Dover being abandoned in the medium to long term. For now there are other priorities, but CoD has now reached an almost finished state.

After so much work and development, it seems crazy to just drop it.

Will someone else pick up the ball?

The question isn't if someone else will. The question is of 1C will ALLOW someone else to pick up the ball.

Unfortunately, I doubt it, since improving CloD only creates a competitor for BoS, which doesn't make much business sense.

A few people have voiced their concerns about the flight models in RoF being simple. You just get a handful of planes in the air at any given time and it's an arcade-style dogfight. I don't know where you're getting this from. Have you played RoF lately? WWI dogfighting is much different than WWII. The scale was different, and naturally the airplanes were different. Obviously, I've never flown any of these aircraft myself, but they handle really well. I get a more realistic sense of flight than in any other flight sim I've played actually. I remember the first few weeks I got the game I would poke my head out to the side and hear the air rushing hard and I looked down and actually got a feeling of vertigo. How those little biplanes float around is spot on. I think this combined venture will surprise a lot of people.

The RoF graphics engine is capable of handling a lot more, you just gotta give it time. Let's say, enough time for a 2014 release? RoF is amazing, and the fact that 777 is teaming up with 1C to make the next IL-2 game is literally the perfect scenario. Over the past couple years RoF has ironed out the kinks and the engine is smooth, pretty, bug free, and accurate. What else could you want?

I also love the pricing model for RoF. It prevents piracy, it keeps the devs funded, and it allows for a high standard of quality. Every one of their planes is beautiful (even if it's an ugly plane), and if the flight modelling is incorrect, since the devs are continuously funded, they can work on them consistently to fix them.

It's a shame that one thing failed, but in the wake of its demise grows a potentially far greater thing. The series lives on!

Personally, I would have thought teaming up with DCS to be a better choice.....

On reflection, I'm not so sure that is true. A lot of people will be put off by all the negative press CloD got, regardless of any future developments... a case in point being Empire Total War! I've lost count of the times I've had this conversation:

"Empire Total War is great!"
"Nah.. It's broken!"
"Have you seen the stuff modders have done with it?"
"Nah.. It's broken!"
"Seriously! Check out Darthmod!"
"Nah.. It's broken!"
(Beats head against wall)

People will still buy the new game BUT, when the work ATAG are doing takes off, a reasonable amount of people may be convinced to go out and purchase CloD just to install the mods and see what it can do... which can only lead to 1C making more money. They'd be fools to turn down easy cash.

Who knows? If they become aware of the stuff ATAG pull off (Assuming it goes well)... they may even be convinced to hand it over?

A dream? Perhaps... but all realities start with a dream!

That would be good...many would still need to do an up-grade though, to get a decent fps

I think that still a lot could be done with the engine... When having stutters, my grapics card is not fully used, so it´s not the grapics card which causes that... it´s rather that cpu or something else is not used the right way...