PMDG Confirms 777 and More!

Captain Randazzo, head honcho over at PMDG, checked into the forums with a major news update last night. Tons of exciting news! Brief summary:

• First of all, they are giving us a little bonus for the 747-400X: a new 747-8i external model! Boeing recently unveiled the 747-8, and flight testing is expected to begin in early 2010. Now we can enjoy the 747-8 in Flight Simulator, too! This is just an add-on external model for the 400X; the avionics and flight dynamics are still the same. Still, it should be close enough to the real thing to be enjoyable. PMDG is planning to unveil this by the end of January.
  
• Next, work on the 737 NGX (v2) is progressing along, in spite of some delays. Apparently, PMDG is working closely with Boeing on the 737 NGX, and they have had some difficulty coordinating schedules with Boeing. The good news is that they are working on integrating the virtual cockpit, which should put them on the home stretch toward beta testing. Looking forward to seeing this one! A mid-2010 release is expected, but there is nothing firmer than this to report yet.
• PMDG is still working on the Dash-8 as well, although this is going rather slowly at the moment, as most programming resources have been allocated toward the 737 NGX. Things on this front are expected to pick up once the NGX goes beta. The -200/-300 models are being done first, but Capt. Randazzo says that they "intend to work through the Dash-8 series." Hopefully this means we'll see the Q400 later on. Probably won't see this one until sometime toward the end of 2010.
• And now, the big news...Capt. Randazzo confirmed that PMDG has plans to develop a 777. Hooray! Capt. Randazzo says that the 737 NGX will provide a testbed of technologies that will be directly applicable to the 777. He says that the 777 may well represent "one of the shortest development cycles in PMDG's history," as it sounds like they plan to reuse a lot of things from the 737 NGX. Very nice!

Sounds like great things are ahead for us from PMDG in 2010! Can't wait!