Future of simulations 2010 discussion

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

Reaching the widest possible market also means taking into account a wide range of PC hardware capability and playing style... but no matter what, there will be those who insist that modelling the bug splat is necessary and required and there will be those (if bug splat is modelled) who will insist the bug doesn't go splat in the correct manner. Meanwhile, for a reasonable amount of fliers out there, the splat will bog their PC hardware down.

Not just the actual PC hardware is a limiting factor. Look at the controller options. You have to buy a joystick and doing so is a real mixed bag. A lot of the entry joysticks are either crap with horrible deadzones or non-ambidextrous, leaving a small segment to be even more limited in their option. Plus if you want to do well you need a rudder. Some joysticks have twist rudder, but if you want a rudder that doesn't suck you need to drop another $100 on a set of pedals. If you go the hotas setup you have to drop $100-500 on something that has a good chance of being a lemon.

The Saitek X-52's have crappy spikes in a lot of their units, and G940 still has the reversal bug in the rudder and throttle plus some units overhead and shut down the force feedback. Even the warthog, the holy grail of Hotas setups have issues with DOA units and spiking in them.

It's hard enough for those of us who like flight sims to stay in the game, think about someone just getting into them!