Microsoft Flight development stopped, Project Columbia scrapped

Less than five months after Microsoft Flight launched, Microsoft Studios has stopped development on free-to-play fly 'em up. It's also canned the studio's mysterious Kinect interactive storybook Project Columbia. With these two projects gone, MS has laid off a fair few people in Vancouver.

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Less than five months after Microsoft Flight launched, Microsoft Studios has halted development on the free-to-play fly 'em up at its Vancouver studio. It's also canned the studio's Kinect interactive storybook Project Columbia. With these two projects gone, MS has laid off a fair few people in Vancouver.

We never got to see exactly what Project Columbia was. It was announced in October 2011 as some sort of interactive storybook, designed with the Sesame Workshop Curriculum Team.

A mysterious unannounced space shooter is said to still be in development at the Vancouver studio, though. According to whispers heard by Internet rumour-hound 'superannuation,' it's a new franchise intended to be as big as Halo or Gears of War, with Crysis 2 lead designer Sten Huebler working on it. It's said to have started as a Kinect game but is now targeting the next Xbox. So They say, anyway.

The decision to shut Flight and Columbia down and lay off staff was "the result of the natural ebb and flow of our portfolio management," MS told Kotaku. "Many factors were considered in the difficult decision to stop development on 'Microsoft Flight' and 'Project Columbia,' but we feel it will help us better align with our long-term goals and development plans."

Microsoft Flight was eagerly awaited by fans when it was announced in 2010, the first flight sim from Microsoft since 2006, but it turned out to be far less than many had hoped for. It launched as an arcade-y free-to-play game with a small selection of planes and only a tiny corner of the world to explore, selling extra content as DLC.

MS Flight will still be online and up for download, and Microsoft says that it "will continue to support the community", but don't expect anything exciting.

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  • reply
    July 26, 2012 6:00 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Microsoft Flight development stopped, Project Columbia scrapped.

    Less than five months after Microsoft Flight launched, Microsoft Studios has stopped development on free-to-play fly 'em up. It's also canned the studio's mysterious Kinect interactive storybook Project Columbia. With these two projects gone, MS has laid off a fair few people in Vancouver.

    • reply
      July 26, 2012 6:48 AM

      Having deja vu of Ensemble Studios.

      Oh Ensemble, you have been sorely missed.

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      July 26, 2012 7:40 AM

      Flight is ok...it's no where near the true sim FSX is, but it's ok.
      The problem I have is they are charging so much for everything. Over ten bucks for one shitty aircraft, no jets, no air traffic, no ground traffic, uses MS Live, etc.

      I picked up the content bundle during the steam summer sale for 16 bucks and I still feel ripped off.

      A "casual" flight sim?

      Shit was presunk.

      • reply
        July 26, 2012 9:36 AM

        It probably didn't start off casual. I bet they built this from parts left over after they finished firing everyone from Microsoft Games. It was probably going to be FSXI at one point. I bet they downsized the whole division down to 3 people and tasked them with building a game out of way more resources than they could handle.

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          July 26, 2012 12:38 PM

          This is closer to the truth than you know...

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      July 26, 2012 9:40 AM

      I bet they could build an incredible flight sim game with a modified CryEngine 3.

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      July 26, 2012 10:14 AM

      The layoffs are very sad news, and it frustrates me to think the ones with the piss-poor business acumen to take a solid franchise like Flight Simulator and drive it into the ground are the ones who most likely still have jobs.

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        July 26, 2012 5:18 PM

        I agree, sadly. I've always been a bit fan of MS in many of their endevors even when it wasn't cool. I honestly liked alot of their game but as far as PC gaming in the last 5 or something years they've had a bipolar disorder that usually went to the bad side too. MS's PC gaming is sorely missed for me.

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      July 26, 2012 11:18 AM

      Pretty bummed about this. My dad is moving out of state to take a new position since the job market here is so bad. He's really into flight in general (model planes, etc) so I was hoping we could connect weekly and just fly together.

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        July 26, 2012 3:15 PM

        It's still going to be functional, just no new content

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      July 26, 2012 10:03 PM

      Sad ending for Microsoft Blight

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