They say change is good. So after 6+ years of working in the simulations group I've decided to tackle some new challenges. Today is my last day with Aces. It's been a fantastic experience working on some great products (FS8, CFS3, FS9, FSX and TS2) with...

It's been a very busy week around the office. Most of the team have been engaged in getting ready for a program review with senior management. These periodic meetings are a normal part of the development process. The folks writing the big checks want...

Copies of Kuju Rail Simulator has finally started to make it into customers' hands. UKTrainSim.com has created a screenshot forum . Have a look. Some of the shots look really nice. I especially like those showing some of the urban areas. Well done!

Yes, I have to admit I was caught up in Halo mania this week. Those of us who work at Microsoft Game Studios got our copies of Halo 3 at a Monday afternoon celebration in advance of the public release and I played through part of the single-player campaign...

The past couple of weeks have been pretty interesting. For starters, in that time we have moved into a new building in Redmond. We had been due for a move for some time as we've been growing our staff to support a number of product initiatives. The result...

If you haven't seen it yet, Kuju posted a video of their route editor. you can find it here: http://www.railsimulator.com/images/Rail%20Simulator%20world%20editor%20V2.wmv . This is the first video of the editor they've released in awhile and I have to...

Realism... It's a term that's used often in the context of our simulation titles. Of course, realism is often in the eye of the beholder and this fact leads to seemingly endless debate over whether our simulations are "real" or not. Well, sometimes...

"It's deja vu all over again!" Now that we've made the "official" annoucement about Train Simulator the online forums are alive with comment and speculation. For me it's an eerie feeling, like I've been through this before. Oh, wait. I have--with Flight...

Well, it certainly is good to be able to talk more about the project after all these long months. I'm finally getting re-aclimated to Seattle time after my trip. My first night home I began to really feel the travel during dinner and lasted no more than...

Well, I'm back on American soil. (Actually, living in this modern society I don't think my feet have actually touched "soil"--just lots of concrete, asphalt, wood and carpet!) The week in Germany went well. From my little "office" in the Leipziger Messe...

It's day two of press briefings at the Game Conference. Yesterday I spoke with 19 journalists from 7 European countries. So far I haven't seen any reports on line but that's expected at a busy show like this. The only thing I found was a Yahoo! reprinting...

Sorry it's been so long since my last post but there's been a lot happening. Nonetheless I thought you'd like to hear about what I'm up to this week. I'm in Leipzig, Germany at the massive Game Conference--the biggest is Europe--meeting with journalists...

As in, "I'm back" and "Oh, my back!" It's been too long since my last post. On the other hand, if I felt I really had stuff to say I suppose I would have posted. TrainSim has been slowly progressing. The Devs are plugging away at some of the groundwork...

An update. I did get Vista set up on my dev box the other morning. The RTM version is really nice. Yes, I did get the new sounds and they are cool. <g> I've been slowly uncovering little enhancements like the new Photo Gallery and the ability...

I'm in early this morning--6:30 a.m. My goal is to get the Vista RTM bits on my development machine before my regular schedule of meetings begins. I started the process yesterday but ran into installation issues. I managed to get my machine in a state...

Ya know, it's certainly reassuring that despite my move from Flight Sim to Train Sim, some things remain the same. When we first starting talking and blogging about the latest version of Flight Simulator we were met with reactions that, frankly, bordered...

In fact, they continue to speak. Of course I'm referring to all you current and potential Train Simulator customers out there. I've spend a good deal of time reading feedback since we announced the new version. In the first week since we posted the announcement...

Jamie, our development lead on Train Simulator, posted a great blog post about what it means to build Train Simulator "on the Flight Simulator platform". Check it out!

Well, based on the emails I've received at least a few people are reading my blog. Unfortunately all of the emails have one theme...No, I can't get you on the beta testing list! <g> If and when we decide to solicit beta testers the place you will...

With the annoucement of Microsoft's new Train Simulator project it seems likely that many more new people will be visiting this site (or am I just hoping? <g>) so it probably makes sense to re-introduce myself to this new group. Here goes: ...

What's been occupying my time over the past few months . Oh, what am I doing? Well, same sort of thing as when I worked on Flight Sim. Project lead, helping with designs, managing schedules, writing a little code when no one's looking--that sort...

Has it really been over two months since my last blog post? Sheesh. Well, I think I'm almost recovered from the Flight Sim X launch. Hopefully I'll soon be able to mention what it is I've been working on since the middle of last year. But until then ...

Microsoft recently sent the next version of Office, called the Office System 2007, to the duplicators. I'd been using a beta version on my 2 nd PC for a while but upgraded my main PC (a Tecra M3 laptop) the other day with RTM bits. I must say it's got...

Well, I think it's time to move on. Despite the fact that I'm no longer assigned to the Flight Simulator project I have spent loads of time observing the FSX launch and trying to inject information and assistance where possible. At this point, though...

UPDATE: Bookmark this page and check back regularly: http://support.microsoft.com/ph/11941 . A new week and more information is surfacing about installation and activation problems. Many people are confusing the activation policies for FSX with...