PMDG, a well known third part developer for FSX and Prepar3D, has announced that they are bringing their well known and highly regarded products over to the new Microsoft Flight Simulator. It’s the first of what are likely to be many announcements coming in the future for the new sim. Let’s have a quick look at what this means.
Four highly detailed airliners
In an update yesterday on their forums, PMDG decided to clear up any confusion and rumours and note that they were planning to bring their four aircraft product line to the new Microsoft Flight Simulator. Having build the line for P3D and FSX before that, PMDG have become well known for their airliners, notably the 737, 747, 777 and DC-6.
Here’s what the statement says,
Just to minimize any guesswork, we are planing to bring each of our four major product lines (737, 747, 777 and DC-6) into the new Microsoft Flight Simulator. MSFS promises to give us entirely new capabilities, and it will take some time to adapt each product to capitalize, but they will all be brought over in time. We will have more to say about this at the right time and place, but there has been a bit of hyperbolic discussion that I wanted to clarify with this piece of information here.
rsrandazzo on the PMDG forums
Obviously this isn’t a full announcement but it is a confirmation that their are actively working towards releasing their products for the new Flight Simulator.
As of yet, Microsoft has not announced any airliners beyond the A320 Neo and 747-8 so more airliners is sure to make a lot of people happy. PMDG are known for creating highly detailed airliners although they are not without their detractors as some of the prices for their airliners can run over $100 USD.
It’ll be interesting to see PMDG and other developers bring aircraft to MSFS and make announcements as time goes on. Check out the announcement here and visit the PMDG website here.
Stormbirds 
PMDG already announced they’re bringing the 737 NGXu to MSFS. i’m shocked to hear that so many folks think they wouldn’t bring their entire line!!!
Like it or not, MS FS is already the 1800lb gorilla of flight sim, and ALL FSX/P3D devs are going to either dev for MS FS, or watch their revenue RAPIDLY diminish to pennies on the dollar.
I’ve put a LOT of money into P3D in a fairly short time (I like good scenery!) and even with the significant enhancements of v5, I will drop it like a hot rock once FS 2020 is released.
And, if it is mostly what Asobo has been telling us, i’m not even sure i’ll ever crank up X-Plane again, either(!)
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I think it was the uncertainty that was being latched on to that PMDG needed to address. The concern now seems to be if they will bring their MD-11 to MSFS which wasn’t announced – but I’m guessing given enough time will arrive too.
MSFS is already the gorilla in the room. It’s going to be interesting to see how it plays out.
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X-Plane won’t have an easy life, between P3D and MSFS…
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true.
the good news is that they’ve done it before and know how to carve out a niche for themselves. They’re still the only high end flight sim available for Mac OS & Linux, and their new smartphone/tablet version is pretty strong, as well as having a common code base with the desktop version.
given the substantial performance increase from Vulkan, i think they’ve bought themselves time enough to figure out a way forward.
I’d think they should be talking seriously to Google and Orbx to see what kind of comparable features/experience they could jointly bring to x-plane to gain competitive features with fs 2020. And/Or, Austin has spoken about “hyper realistic” scenery/environment that they’re already working on…
as a long time Mac user and a big fan of competitive markets, i’m truly rooting for x-plane to THRIVE!
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And it’s always better to keep several sims in competition. I do hope X-Plane continues and grows, they have a lot of good things for them.
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I’d just be cautious. A few years back we thought they’d do the same move to X-Plane, and I bought their DC-6, only to find out very poor care for this product after launch. Last time I checked it was more or less compatible with X-Plane 11, but not supported for this version.
I believe that they found out the gain was worth the effort, which is perfectly understandable, it takes a lot of time porting a sim to another different platform. They decided to port the DC-6 to P3D where it was apparently a greater success. That must have discouraged them somewhat.
If they are smart, they will check whether one product is successful in the new MS simulator before cautiously considering to port further ones (of course they’re not likely to publicly say that, to reassure potential buyers). P3D is also improving their simulator, and it’s easier to update than port to an entirely different sim. There’s also a solid base of customers who have invested a lot in this platform, they will remain there for a while.
It’s only my opinion, I have no insider knowledge and may be completely wrong, of course. But those products are expensive, so better safe than sorry.
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737-800*
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I have built my skills and sim around the 737, this is awesome exiting news for me!. I love xplane and Zibo mod but to many updates to many file manipulations it breaks easy. Xplane is like the sports car you always have to tinker with to get it to run right. MSFS 2020 is a sports car that you get in and drive anywhere anytime and low maintenance but high end output. I just pre ordred wasent going to do it until I knew pmdg was porting the 737 over.. pmdg is the most realistic model of the 737,747,777
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Ah, looking back at these comments. Sure X-Plane is like a sports car, always need to tinker, but man MSFS 2020 while promising leaves a lot to be desired at this moment…especially if you haven’t figured out how to optimize it.
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Well all well and good for those wishing to use PMDG products. However I hope they pay attention to the flight dynamic aspect in that it flies and feels like a real aircraft (instead of porpising up and down. And on approach the weather affects the aircraft which as someone labelled it as Flying on rails
I don’t hardly use any of my purchased Pmdg aircraft and instead purchased a 787 which while not perfect with instruments. It flies and feels amazing to a aspect of true fluid flight dynamics
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