Has Flight Simulator met its end?

James Fallows reports that Microsoft has laid off the team that works on Flight Simulator. I was never much of a player of Flight Simulator, but it should be recognized as one of the most important games in the history of personal computing. It was one of the very first games to offer a first person perspective on the action, it was one of the first games for the IBM PC platform, and I think it’s likely that it’s the oldest continually developed computer game on the market. Wikipedia has a lengthy article on Microsoft Flight Simulator. PC Magazines has further details. I can’t help but wonder if the better choice would have been to spin off ACES Studios and give them the Flight Simulator intellectual property to try to make it on their own.