Microsoft Confirms Aces Closure

Studio responsible for Flight Simulator shut down amidst layoffs.

US, January 23, 2009 – Microsoft has confirmed the closure of Aces Game Studio, the internal development studio responsible for Microsoft Flight Simulator. Flight Simulator is one of the company’s oldest product lines, stretching back more than 20 years. The closure came amidst the company’s first major layoffs in its history, announced on Thursday. Approximately 5,000 Microsoft employees will be laid off; around 1,400 were cut immediately, with the remainder to but cut over the next 18 months.

In a statement, Kelda Rericha of Edelman, Microsoft’s public relations firm, said that the decision was made within Microsoft’s Internal Entertainment Business “to align our people against our highest priorities.”

The closure of Aces marks the shuttering of another major developer within Microsoft Game Studios. Since September of 2007, the company has shut down FASA Studio (Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries, and Shadowrun), announced the closure of Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires), and Carbonated Games (Hexic HD, Uno). In addition, Bungie, the studio responsible for Halo, left Microsoft Games Studios and became an independent studio, though Microsoft does maintain an ownership stake in it.

Does this mean the end of the Flight Simulator franchise? According to Rericha, “We are committed to the Flight Simulator franchise which has proven to be a successful PC based game for the last 27 years. You should expect us to continue to invest in enabling great LIVE experiences on Windows, including flying games, but we have nothing specific to announce at this time.”

Original Source : http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/947/947737p1.html

NB : you’ll need to install your own copy of FaceAPI SDK (and probably FSX SDK as well) to compile this project

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This is my test of combining FaceAPI with FSX SDK, so using the headtracking to control the point of view without any marker on your head.

I’m not a programmer (supposed to be a cg artist), so I did what I can, but it’s really crappy ! (my smooth is not working at all !!! :p) so it’s a bit shaky but could be improved a little bit.

I did use the FaceAPI’s example “TestAppConsole” and add it the CockpitCamera.cpp example of the FSX SDK. (thanks to my friend Yousri for his help ^^)

You can get the all project with source here : http://code.google.com/p/ft-projects/source/browse/#svn/trunk/FaceAPI2FSX

href="http://www.francois-tarlier.com/blog/index.php/2009/01/faceapi-2-fsx/">

FaceAPI : http://www.faceapi.com/
btw, it might look like it’s running slow on the video, but the video capture make it look like that, it’s actually pretty fast on my computer. And note that this version is running in “debug mode” and that the both console slow done a bit the process. Since I’m not a programmer I cannot do a better job with it, but if you want to make it an update and improve it feel free to go for

“FreeTrack is a free optical motion tracking application for Microsoft Windows, released under the GNU General Public License. …

Head motions are tracked with six degrees of freedom (6DOF), specifically; yaw, pitch, roll, left/right, up/down and forward/back. …”

This is a really cool application that I use with Flight Simulator. It’s exactly like the commercial product Track-IR but it’s totally free and open source. All you have to do is build your cap the way you want. you have all the information on how to do it on the website, a great community to help you on the forum (and I think some people can build one for you if you ask )

You really should take a look at it

More videos : http://www.free-track.net/english/multimedia/video.php

Compatible Games : http://www.free-track.net/english/freetrack/liste-titres-compatibles.php

The Website : http://www.free-track.net/english/