PMDG shares previews of their upcoming B737
One of the most anticipated add-ons to date for Microsoft Flight Simulator is PMDG’s 737 NG3. Today, Rober Randazzo shared further insights and previews of the upcoming aircraft add-on on the PMDG Forums. First things first: There is no fixed release date yet and no price expectation either. But PMDG is trying to aim for release by the end of the year - Q4 2021. The newly shown pictures already look very promising - even though it is still an early alpha version.
As we start 4Q21, we finally feel that the PMDG 737 for MSFS is beginning to look and feel like a product rather than a science experiment gone awry. Developing the 737 on the MSFS platform has been a difficult road thus far, in part because the platform is so very different from what we are used to, it is still very much in motion and we are heavily reliant upon the Asobo development team finding time in their already jammed agenda to implement the things that we need to get the airplane operable within the sim.
The images that have been shared are based on an in-development model upon which PMDG is still resolving some small alignment issues in the texture mapping, as well as cleaning up the various reflectivity and surface mappings to ensure that they work correctly and capitalize on the great visual capabilities of the MSFS platform. The team has intentionally withheld images of the flight deck because we they still fitting out a few items there, and working to resolve some systems implementation concerns through the use of customized tools and images within the cockpit.
As of this morning's dev team meeting, Alex is fully engulfed in working on cockpit lighting, which will work similarly to how it was implemented in the DC-6 because Asobo has given us a really nice lighting model within the sim. I can't wait for you to see that- as it is really something spectacular when you get into a darker environment and things begin to glow "just so" in the cockpit.
Comprehensive beta-testing is still pending. While the team at PMDG has received several requests asking for features and details about the current development progress, they feel like the aircraft is making good progress. Yet, it is too early to talk about any functionality differences between the P3D and MSFS versions, as the team is focusing on through the task list one item at a time.
In addition, there is further encouraging news concerning the PMDG organization.
We have largely settled that in already as we are taking a different approach to product structure in the MSFS environment. I'll have more details on that when the time is right, but our goal is to make it easier and less expensive to add a PMDG airplane to your MSFS hangar.