House name developer PMDG has published two major updates in the span of two days to inform the community on their ongoing projects, giving crucial information on current milestones and some possibly heartbreaking information for many.

The developer Randazzo at PMDG covered the following projects; 747 Queen of the Skies, Updates for 777, 737, DC-6, J-41 on P3D Platform, Future P3D Development Thoughts, PMDG DC-6, and last but certainly not least, they included a lengthy but informative recap of the progress on the 737NG.

DC-6 for MSFS + XBOX Rollout Issues

To open the gates with the DC-6 portion on their update, the developers stated that;

“We have a couple of small items that we are going to roll out to users in an update for the DC-6, but we want to wait until Microsoft has gotten the Xbox version un-stuck before we do so”

In part they stated they wanted to avoid any potential issues after the Xbox version is sorted out, to minimise the amount of confusion.

Secondly, the team brought up some of the issues the team is facing at the MS Marketplace, citing that they are struggling with some “commonality issues” with the PMDG Operations Centre and that fixes were projected for this week but may end up being brought into effect next week - including an insightful part of how their process goes, the team mentioned this; 

“Normally we like to have these things worked out for users ahead of time- but the Marketplace is a closed environment that doesn't give us an opportunity to test the user experience and adequately prepare for it ahead of time.”

Additionally, there is a bit of trial and error during the development process for the PMDG Operations Centre, which involves features such as testing liveries, etc.

On the subject of the Xbox rollout issues, the team is still awaiting information from Asobo and Microsoft, but noted that the preliminary information received does not paint an optimistic picture as there is a conflict between MSFS and the Xbox itself that appeared for the first time with the DC-6 release - Randazzo concluded this sector of the release with a reassurance that it will be fixed soon, and information will eventually come once it is cleared.

Pulling PMDG 737 for MSFS Release Timeline

PMDG planned on releasing their rendition of the 737NG for the year-end, but has hit a roadblock which is in turn, forcing the team to completely remove the PMDG 737 from the MSFS Release Timeline. The culprit behind the decision is the lack of certainty surrounding the implementation of certain critical features from Asobo which the team requested. Randazzo states that the release will “be dependent upon some changes that we have requested from Asobo and we do not currently have any clarity as to when we might expect those changes to be made, if at all.”

“ I want to explain a bit further what we are trying to convey: We are not just announcing a delay, or that we are moving the release timeline 30 days or 60 days or 120 days or 365. We are not saying the 737 won't release in January, February, or any other month in 2022. What we **are** saying is that we are putting a temporary hold on giving you any expectation as to when the release might happen”

Issues were stemmed from a lack of debugging tools, and an additional series of problems that were introduced to the developer tools with the release of SU7, which in turn caused extensive build-times and many CTD’s when working in the developer environment and this, in turn, brought all 737 development to a stop for a few weeks unexpectedly. Closing off the Thursday update, a piece of positive news: Asobo is currently helping the team in certain aspects of getting the development back on track, which has already begun according to the development team. Randazzo remains confident that the team is committed to completing the aircraft.

The very next day, Randazzo came back to drop a couple new previews of the NG3 cockpit photos which can be viewed below. As the cockpit progress continues to close the gap towards completion, Randazzo warned that it still is not representative of the final product, as inconsistencies remain visible in the shots, some developer art (e.g. yellow VSI) was imputed for testing purposes and will obviously not be included into the final version.

The images, as described, demonstrates the visual work harnessing the lighting and material engine which enables the team to replicate certain surfaces such as plastics. In the night shots, (such as the ones above), the team takes advantage of the lighting capabilities, though it’s noted that the spill from the parking brake light remains to be re-tuned.

The team is still working on other parts of the cockpit such as the EFB, HUD and Terrain map, Randazzo promised to preview them once they’re at a stage where it’s ready to be shown. As part of their development exploration within MSFS, the team is experimenting with a couple of “risk technologies” such as the weather radar, features that will likely not make the cut to release due to technical limitations of the simulator, or features that will take some time investment to seeing how it can be ported to Prepar3d.

That’s all from Randazzo and PMDG, it seems that these two progress updates aim to wrap up something of a productive (and uncertain) year. As per usual, we’ll keep ourselves in the loop so you can too! To check the original posts below, click on the following links (you’ll need to be a forum member):

DC-6 and 737NG Roadblock - click here

737NG Cockpit Previews - click here