The past few weeks at PMDG HQ have seemingly been a rather turbulent affair. With the DC-6 releasing on Xbox, only to then be removed. Then the news of the 737 for MSFS coming along well, only to then get stuck by a major roadblock that prevented beta testing from going ahead. Now it appears that the period of rough weather is now clearing and PMDG can continue progress with the 737 for MSFS.
In Robert’s third post of the week (we normally can go months without anything), he explains that at long last, PMDG is now officially ‘unstuck’. As was explained a few weeks ago, PMDG were tackling a bug that prevented real progress from being made on bringing the 737 for MSFS into the beta testing phase and ultimately out to simmers around the world. That issue has seemingly been resolved with input from Asobo and PMDG are now progressing towards beta testing.
According to Robert, PMDG is “currently evaluating both a transition-to-testing date and an initial release date.” This is encouraging news from the aircraft developer as it brings us ever closer to the release of the anticipated airliner for Microsoft Flight Simulator. Robert continued, ” I’ll have quite a bit more information on the release process right around the time we actually put the airplane into testing, as there are a host of items that have been stagnant since early October that we can finally begin to evaluate fully- and I need the intervening time in order to speak intelligently about the release process.“
In celebration of this milestone, a new image of the 737 for MSFS was shared with the ‘Test Package’ option enabled that has the test kit on the aircraft. It doesn’t do anything different whilst in the simulator other than provide a visual package that replicates the test equipment Boeing uses.
The news is likely to be a relief to many who were concerned that this bug would cause an indefinite delay. That said, there is still plenty of work to do. Robert did say that there are a few items left on the so-called ‘worry-list’ and he says they will know more in the coming weeks.
All of this follows the recent announcement from PMDG that the 737-700 body type would be released first, followed by additional body types afterwards. This new release strategy from PMDG signals a departure from their previous release/pricing strategy that we saw with FSX/P3D products.
We’ll of course keep you updated with the latest from PMDG as the situation develops. In the meantime, check out the array of previews images we have seen over the past few weeks.
