I think a major game-maker can produce something somewhat 'quickly'. If MS had today's technology when they started, they wouldn't have taken anywhere near 20 years to get to FSX.After taking several years to do it. From what I've heard, there were some absolutely fantastic things on-deck for FS11--the one that comes to mind is voice recognition for ATC. X-plane has been in development for at least 8 years now, and their audible ATC is just a recorded loop (or maybe random) in the background. It was annoying. FSX already has an excellent ATC simulator, which really takes the "single" out of single-player, since if you have traffic turned on you can hear ATC really interacting with other traffic (in addition to you). It really makes the world feel alive, unlike X-plane: which doesn't even have traffic!
I didn't intend to promote consoles, or a console FS. I just used it as an example for graphics. I love the ability to use a full-sized keyboard.Consoles blow. Console games blow. The bleeding-edge of computer gaming is light-years ahead of the bleeding-edge of console gaming. At the same price point you can play better-looking games on a console than a PC, but also remember that console controls suck (if they make a console where I can use a mouse and keyboard for FPSes and a joystick for flight sims, I'll switch to a console. None of that stupid dinky controller crap.)
There are often much more advanced physics than those examples. 'Particularly' with certain game engines. (game engine in this case meaning a framework able to be used with multiple games)The wrong kinds of physics simulations. The physics equations that make a bullet ricochet off a wall (or make the wall crater when it gets it by that bullet) are not the physics equations that make airplanes fly.
Just trying to hit all the main parts of making a game.Um...okay?
I think you're comparing major game companies to smaller groups a little too much. But true, I shouldn't have said 'far better' with a short time. They can definitely make something comparable to FSX within that time-frame. And given maybe five more years, can at least reach the level of FSX, possibly exceed the graphics (that may depend on other things like DirectX development), and implement features that FSX doesn't have. However, unless 'this organization' is trying to make a replica of FSX, some features of FSX that don't come directly from real life are likely to be left out."Within a couple of years," possibly. "Far better than FSX," possibly. But not both "far better than FSX" AND "within a couple of years." If you think that's possible, then you're severely underestimating software development time.