It’s been no secret that PMDG has been working on the Microsoft Flight Simulator platform, but little has been said about how development has been going. We saw the 737 in the simulator last year, and most recently, a teaser of the DC-6 in the simulator. However, Robert has taken to the forums to give a lot more detail about what we can expect from PMDG this year and beyond on Microsoft Flight Simulator.
In his extensive forum post, Robert said that they realized they would have to build all-new development processes in order to take full advantage of the simulator’s new technology. That process has been hard for the team over the past fourteen months, but they are ready to finally share, in detail, the product line coming to the simulator.
Whilst it was anticipated that the 737 would be the first product from PMDG to be released on the new platform, the development of the DC-6 outpaced expectations and has been under an extensive testing period for several months now. In fact, it’s so far ahead with development that the PMDG team has created a series of tutorial videos to help anyone understand the aircraft. Half of those have been added to a new PMDG YouTube channel, with more coming soon.
The DC-6 will be the first release from PMDG for Microsoft Flight Simulator and Robert suggests that a release could be within the next few weeks. Considering that PMDG development cycles are usually fairly long, this is a huge change of pace from the development team.
Once the DC-6 is out of the door, Robert says with confidence that the 737 is “expected” to release this year. The team has overcome some of the challenges and hurdles from before, but things seem to be picking up extensive pace. So much so that Robert even considers that the 777 could also be out this year. The 777 release is a “remote possibility”, but the fact dates are being applied suggests how confident PMDG is in their new workflow. Of course, Robert couldn’t forget the 747 Queen of the Skies and suggested that the 747 will be out in early 2022.
Finally, Robert said that we can expect the PMDG YouTube channel to be used quite often to showcase development progress and additional tutorials. An advance series for the DC-6 is already planned and Robert also said that we can expect some 737 in Microsoft Flight Simulator previews soon, too.
Things are really heating up for simmers on all platforms and with PMDG “all-in” with the new platform (which should be no surprise), this is becoming a really exciting time for any flight simulator fan.
