Asobo finally "unstucks" the 737 for PMDG, beta testing and release date now being planned

After PMDG’s troubling update in earlier December, where it was revealed that the release of the Boeing 737 for MSFS was put on hold due to the need to have some crucial inputs from Asobo (we never knew the specifics about this), we were all holding our breaths while we waited for a positive turn of events. Finally, there’s good news today: Asobo has given PMDG what it needed to move forward to testing the product and plan for a release date.

When earlier this week PMDG’s Robert Randazzo gave us more details about what’s planned for the 737 release in MSFS, he initially stated that the long-awaited and indispensable feedback from Asobo was yet to come… but that seemed to trigger some cogs in the relationship between both parties because just a few hours later Randazzo came back to promise some good news later in the week. And here they are!

Randazzo says today that, now that this hurdle has been cleared, the team is evaluating the next steps towards a testing phase and the establishment of a release date. Here’s the full quote below, straight from the official statement:

Thanks to some long awaited input from Asobo, we are able to report that our progress toward Beta Testing and eventually Release has been unstuck. We are currently evaluating both a transition-to-testing date and an initial release date. I’ll have quite a bit more information on the release process right around the time we actually put the airplane into testing, as there are a host of items that have been stagnant since early October that we can finally begin to evaluate fully- and I need the intervening time in order to speak intelligently about the release process.
There are still a few more bridges to cross, which is to be expected. The PMDG 737 is easily the most complicated C++ object oriented project to be brought into MSFS at this time and as we have already seen, it is possible to stumble into things that take collaboration to resolve. We have a couple of items on the worry-list, but we are just starting to get into them at this juncture so we shall know more in the coming week.
Robert Randazzo, PMDG

Clearly, there’s still some work to be done, but it seems it’s nothing significant to hinder future developments. Let’s just hope…

As everyone breathes a sigh of relief, things are now looking much brighter for the most highly-anticipated aircraft for MSFS, so it’s time to focus on what’s coming rather than if and when it would come. Like the -700 variant of the aircraft, the first that is planned to come out, as it provides a more logical and efficient step towards building the much more popular -800 model. Or the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System, previewed just a couple of weeks ago. And, obviously, much more, as we’ll surely learn about over the coming weeks.

As a symbol of the serious testing phase that will now follow for the 737 in Microsoft Flight Simulator, Randazzo also shared today a rather cool image depicting the 737 with a red cone dangling from the vertical stabilizer, typically used during testing phases of new aircraft types to measure static pressure. Its presence now on the PMDG 737NGX for MSFS symbolizes just that: it’s now being tested before the final delivery!

To learn more about the latest developments concerning the PMDG 737 for MSFS, see below our previous coverage on this subject.

25Dec