• FACT 1: From late 2006 until the closure of ACES in early 2009, FSX brought in over $100 million dollars in revenue to MS.

That scalar value of "over" is ambiguous at best; disingenuous at worst. Any amount "over" $100 million is -well- over... :rolleyes:

 

I'm not at all confident that much may be inferred from such a statement, most especially because we have no way of reliably determining the number of units sold from that number, nor of knowing whether that "revenue" is referring to the "top line" or "bottom line" in their accounting statement.

Back to the potential size of the FSX community, and how attractive could this market be to commercial developers who are willing to go after what MSFT dropped:

 

Less than 2,000,000 users (plausible number of FSX licenses sold since 2006) but more than 117,000 individuals who actually subscribe to AVSIM (that's a wide range...), but:

 

On the top side, (tip of the iceberg) one could extrapolate that the AVSIM users represent a reasonable size of the active "Mid to Serious level simmers who buy or would buy commercial add-ons". That number could (generously) be as high as 200,000  or 10%.

 

In that case, the other 90% would be made up half (900,000 users) who could be described as casual and gaming users (may use FSX as-is, perhaps with limited free-ware and occasionally, and the other half (900,000) would be drop-outs who might just not be using FSX at all.

 

So, 200,000 (likely) with potential to go up to 1M buyers (maybe), would be the size for the "next-gen" Sim and commercial add-ons.

 

Who knows....... time will tell......

With all due respect to Tom, the mods and admins, and everyone associated with running this site that I adore...

 

I am curious about the oft-quoted 117,000 members number.  Is that the total number of members who have signed up since inception?   And if so, a more telling number would be the number of users who have been active in the last month, or year, even.

 

It's really none of my business, but that still doesn't stop me from being curious.

With all due respect to Tom, the mods and admins, and everyone associated with running this site that I adore...

 

I am curious about the oft-quoted 117,000 members number.  Is that the total number of members who have signed up since inception?   And if so, a more telling number would be the number of users who have been active in the last month, or year, even.

 

It's really none of my business, but that still doesn't stop me from being curious.

 

Active members, defined as in the last year or so. If the member doesn't log on he will go inactive after a while.

Active members, defined as in the last year or so. If the member doesn't log on he will go inactive after a while.

 Thank you, sir!   

On the top side, (tip of the iceberg) one could extrapolate that the AVSIM users represent a reasonable size of the active "Mid to Serious level simmers who buy or would buy commercial add-ons". That number could (generously) be as high as 200,000  or 10%.

Let's not forget that despite AVSIM's well-deserved reputation for being the Premier flightsim website, there are plethora others that, while demonstrably smaller in active membership, collectively make up a significant addition to the total in absolute terms.

 

I'm frankly more focused on those who are interested in the flight sim genre per se, and not necessarily only the sub-set of that group who're interested in payware. The first must necessarily proceed the latter... ^_^

Edited October 29, 201312 yr by n4gix
Inserted missing verb "are"...

So, continuing with assumptions...

 

If there is a potential of 900,000 people who would purchase a license of a next-gen FSIM in let's say a 3-year period after launching, (including 200,000 mid level to serious level simmers who would also purchase commercial add-ons), and each license sells (on average for lets say $120 each). That would yield ~ 108 M USD gross revenue.

 

How big was ACES? 30? ......Let's say a team of 30 - just for the sake of a wild estimate, committed for for 5 years (2 years pre-launching plus 3 years after commercial launching) would cost fully loaded with admin plus facilities about 45M - 50M. That would leave room for the sales and distribution expense plus everything else plus profit after tax.

 

On the other hand, the add-on developers could be looking at a potential new total market of let's say 200,000 mid to serious simmers times $70 average per add on, times 3 add-ons per year times 3 years ~126 M. gross revenue.

 

So, the market size for the new platform would be about the same order of magnitude compared with the one for the add-ons; just over ~100M+ each for the first three years after commercial launching. 

 

These numbers could be totally out of wack... but perhaps not that much. The market could be attractive for MSFT and LM to strike a deal for MSFT releasing to LM the rights for entertaining purposes on P3D. Or for X-Plane to get off the ground much stronger. Or for someone like PMDG to get into doing the new FSIM.

 

And (without getting into the technical side) such new next-gen-sim PC app would have to survive the evolution of five to ten years of the operating system. From that perspective X-Plane seems to be covered!.

Of course, I suspect Aerosoft probably had even tighter and more accurate numbers at their disposal when they (apparently) backed away from their own sim plans.

 

One has to wonder why, with those type of numbers at least theoretically on the table, nobody seems to be vying eagerly to produce the next civilian flight sim?

 

Except maybe Xplane, and honestly I wonder exactly how serious they are about that sometimes.  :unsure:

Of course, I suspect Aerosoft probably had even tighter and more accurate numbers at their disposal when they (apparently) backed away from their own sim plans.

 

One has to wonder why, with those type of numbers at least theoretically on the table, nobody seems to be vying eagerly to produce the next civilian flight sim?

 

Except maybe Xplane, and honestly I wonder exactly how serious they are about that sometimes.  :unsure:

 

I think Gerry hit the nail on the head. The complexity of modern software has made it too expensive to develop a new flight sim.

 

 

The complexity of modern software has made it too expensive to develop a new flight sim.

 

True.  And keep in mind that Microsoft reduced their development time significantly by re-using huge chunks of legacy code.  That made our lives much more difficult, but it helped their economics.  Think about the labor involved in coding a whole new worldwide flightsim from the ground up.  Even with a decent-sized user base, the economics aren't pretty.

True.  And keep in mind that Microsoft reduced their development time significantly by re-using huge chunks of legacy code.  That made our lives much more difficult, but it helped their economics.  Think about the labor involved in coding a whole new worldwide flightsim from the ground up.  Even with a decent-sized user base, the economics aren't pretty.

The clue is to get people hooked on DLC to fund future development. I think one problem with Microsoft as a developer is that they run an expensive operation. A small developer can have dedicated people working for less, not just people wanting the prestige of working for Microsoft.

So, continuing with assumptions...

 

If there is a potential of 900,000 people who would purchase a license of a next-gen FSIM in let's say a 3-year period after launching, (including 200,000 mid level to serious level simmers who would also purchase commercial add-ons), and each license sells (on average for lets say $120 each). That would yield ~ 108 M USD gross revenue.

 

How big was ACES? 30? ......Let's say a team of 30 - just for the sake of a wild estimate, committed for for 5 years (2 years pre-launching plus 3 years after commercial launching) would cost fully loaded with admin plus facilities about 45M - 50M. That would leave room for the sales and distribution expense plus everything else plus profit after tax.

 

On the other hand, the add-on developers could be looking at a potential new total market of let's say 200,000 mid to serious simmers times $70 average per add on, times 3 add-ons per year times 3 years ~126 M. gross revenue.

 

So, the market size for the new platform would be about the same order of magnitude compared with the one for the add-ons; just over ~100M+ each for the first three years after commercial launching. 

 

These numbers could be totally out of wack... but perhaps not that much. The market could be attractive for MSFT and LM to strike a deal for MSFT releasing to LM the rights for entertaining purposes on P3D. Or for X-Plane to get off the ground much stronger. Or for someone like PMDG to get into doing the new FSIM.

 

And (without getting into the technical side) such new next-gen-sim PC app would have to survive the evolution of five to ten years of the operating system. From that perspective X-Plane seems to be covered!.

 

When ACES was shut down, there were 127 people on the team.

The clue is to get people hooked on DLC to fund future development. I think one problem with Microsoft as a developer is that they run an expensive operation. A small developer can have dedicated people working for less, not just people wanting the prestige of working for Microsoft.

 

Very few of the people on the ACES or Flight teams were on the team because it was "Microsoft". Most were there for the same reasons that most people are here, a passion for aviation and the vicarious experience of aviation through simulation.

 

 

When ACES was shut down, there were 127 people on the team.

 

I wonder about the size of the company developing X-Plane. Reading in some forums it does not seem to be anywhere near this....

I wonder about the size of the company developing X-Plane. Reading in some forums it does not seem to be anywhere near this....

 

I've no idea about X-Plane, but the Flight team started with 24 people and had only about 54 at most at any given time. With regard to ACES, it should be remembered that three products were being developed by that team, Flight Sim, Train Sim and ESP and internally there were actually four different sub-groups. That makes the number, perhaps, a bit more reasonable.

The "fourth group" was the "Core Platform" group; the ones charged with developing a unified "world display engine" that all three of the other simulator groups would share.