Brouhaha
Mike Gilbert (also affectionately known as Tdragger) riled a few feathers talking about how nice it is using the x-box controller with Flight Simulator X
I've seen some negative reactions at the very idea of using such a controller. Below is a representative quote (a comment from Mike's blog post):
"yesss flight simulator and x-box controler...sorry Mike but I`m disgusted...you product manager are trying tell us, that using arcade game controler is better in Flight simulation ...yes it`s for sure but for babes .Please stop looking on it like arcade game only , because there is lot`s of simmers which takes it more seriously... "
Well now Mike's gone a step further and offered up steps for getting the controller to work for people who have Flight Simulator 2004 right now.
With regards to the negative reactions, I commented on this on somebody's post once already, but I'll be durned if I know where that is, or I'd point you to the link. My short take on the subject is that this boils down to the "is it a sim or game?" argument that's been floating around since before I got involved with ACES. It would seem that folk are worried that supporting an Xbox controller means that somehow the taint of consoles is spreading to their simulation
(hey! you got peanut butter in my chocolate!).
Hooey.
Yeah, that's right. You heard me. Hooey.
The input control mechanism doesn't define whether or not something is a sim versus a game. Your brain defines it.
A good deal of our users rely on the keyboard alone for flight. That aint exactly a flight yoke, is it?
What about a joystick? That's not very real. Heck, it's certainly nowhere near Hal Bryan's set up: yoke, pedals, radio stack, and trackIR.
If you're worried that a controller will somehow ruin the game, bear in mund that none of the old modes of input are going away. We're just extending the control matrix to allow a bunch of new (or old!) users an easy (especially if they have an Xbox) way to experience the sim.
But even if the argument fails to persuade you, I've got the trump card.
You *do* know that Flight Simulator has already supported a game pad controller for *many* versions, don't you?
:)
