The release of Prepar3D v6 happened just a few days ago and many in the community have been left wondering what this means for the future of their products in the platform. We had already heard from FlightSimLabs regarding their status, but others in the industry have now confirmed what their plans are. On the whole, it’s not looking good.
Let’s start with the positives. FSDreamTeam has confirmed that they have already released installers to support Prepar3D v6 for GSX, GSX Level 2 and also their airport range. They did caveat with this by saying their airports may have some visual issues, but on the whole they seem to be working just as they did before. One important note is that the installer for SODE doesn’t currently support v6, but that the freeware for adding jetways does indeed work. You will just need to manually add it. Instructions over on the forums.
The other good news is that on the whole, airport products seemingly work fine in the new sim. You may need to do some trickery to get the installer to point to the new simulator, but you should be good to go with most of your airport collection. Of course, developers may not officially support it (or help with tech issues), but the consensus across forums and Discord servers seem to indicate airports will function as before, with some minor visual issues. What is important to note is that airport products which use libraries or other middleware software may not work as they are not compatible with v6.
In terms of aircraft, the only one so far that seemingly will be updated for Prepar3D v6 any time soon is Majestic Software’s MJC8 Q400. On their product page, it lists that the 64-bit edition of the plane is compatible with v6 via their installer.
As of right now, that’s where the good news ends. PMDG, A2A Simulations, Parallel 42, and Aerosoft are among those that have said that Prepar3D v6 is just not a priority for them right now.
PMDG said, “With all of our development resources focused on bringing our airliner simulations into Microsoft Flight Simulator, we are not currently planning to update any of our P3D products for compatibility with P3Dv6” They tried to drag-and-drop their products into v6, but did not get great results. They likely won’t evaluate the extensive work until after the release of the 747-400 for Microsoft Flight Simulator – which could be a while away considering we have yet to see any previews of the 777 in the platform yet.
Parallel 42 was also quick to dismiss any future support for Prepar3D as a whole. “There are no plans to develop for P3D v6. v5 dev halted,” their social platforms said. That means no ChasePlane and no visual effect programs.
Similarly, A2A said the same thing by confirming their focus is on Accu-Sim 2.0 for Microsoft Flight Simulator. They said customers are able to freely move their products into the simulator, but there is no guarantee things will work well or even at all. “We know some will find this disappointing, but we simply don’t have the manpower at present to adapt our existing library for Prepar3D v6.”
“At this moment all our internal development for Preper3D is halted,” Aerosoft has commented.
HiFiSimTech, the developers behind Active Sky have said that their current version of ASP3D is not planned to be compatible with V6. On their forums, Damian said that their product plans, features, schedules and pricing is yet to be finalised and they intend on delivering information as soon as they can. At least this isn’t ruling out working on the platform completely!
The general theme within the flight simulation community is that third-party developers are putting their efforts onto other platforms. We’ll update this post should any other key players or important information come to light.
If you’re interested in learning more about Prepar3D v6 and its new features, check out the release post.
