2017 was the best year in FS history - some considerations of current market trends (P3D, XP11, FSX, etc)

[tonywob 4,768]

3 hours ago, GCBraun said:

think it is also very interesting that Avsim is composed by a majority of FSX/P3D users, while the Flightsim subreddit is mostly XP11 oriented. It shows that the younger among us are actually starting out with a different flight-sim platform than the one that has dominated the market for more than 25 years.

Yep, that's my observation as well. P3D seems to be the sim used by more mature simmers and X-Plane seems to attract a younger, newer crowd. Although after reading through a certain thread on the PMDG forum yesterday discussing something similar, I can't believe most in that thread were actually fully grown adults. It's like reading a strange closed cult-worship group with lots of ganging up, bullying etc, more what you would see in a school-yard and not what I'd personally expect to see in a forum predominately used by adults.

8 hours ago, Boomer said:

But I tell you, P3dv4 is vastly superior and I could never go back. 

For me, "vastly" is too much a strong word. I have P3Dv4, and I personally don't see a huge difference except for the price I have to pay for everything. I'm happy it's 64bit of course but I never had problems with OOMs in the first place, so I see very little difference in performance between FSX-SE (and I have to turn off things like speedtrees and bloom because I find them ugly), and to me it's basically the same sim with exactly the same engine. Same as FSW, it's a small improvement over FSX with some nice freebies thrown in, but has the same warts and all. That's not to say I don't like P3D and I prefer flying GA in it over flying GA in X-Plane or Aerofly.

[Humpty 751]

8 hours ago, Boomer said:

I was an old FSX and then FSX SE user.

But I tell you, P3dv4 is vastly superior and I could never go back. 

Can you be specific in what way "vastly" superior ?

[pete_auau 1,152]

11 minutes ago, HumptyDumpty said:

Can you be specific in what way "vastly" superior ?

yep i always  wonder  on these  kind of  statements

[GCBraun 2,390]

For me P3Dv4 is great because it is 64 bits. I would still consider it vastly superior just because of that! Looking just from a graphics/FDE perspective though, it does not feel that different from FSX.

[fppilot 4,335]

5 hours ago, GCBraun said:

I think that the still high FSX market share also has to do with the average age of the members of our community. Usually older folks are much more skeptical to change their habits and throw themselves into something really new. I saw this happening over the years with Virtual Cockpits, Virtual Reality, etc...

What I am about to say is all in good spirit, so please AVSIM don't play this into an inferno. Just know it lit at least a small fire here and let it now die out!

I am now retired so your age range description may fits, but the remainder of your SWAG is highly stereotypical and your overspeed warning is shaking.....  I like most, have a busy schedule and I value the time I can set aside for flying.  The reason I am not an early adopter of P3D is what I have read here over the past few years.  In Fall of 2015 I built a new state of the art system with the full intention of adopting P3D.  My specs are visible below.  Then some pretty significant issues were taking place with P3D. Sounded a lot like issues that cropped up with each new version of FS.  Based on the amount of time consumed to install a simulator from scratch, and all that goes with it, I made a decision to stick with  FSX for a minimum of a year to see what shakes out.  I did not get comfortable until recently, v4.  This (cold weather out) is my time of the year to fly.  

For example, I don't need to throw $1,000 at the latest vid card to get, now please take time to understand this, "the increment of difference" for how I fly.  The mid to high altitude and fast end of GA.  On that concept of "increment of difference " I will hold my tongue and not repeat your stereotypical mistake of calling out a generation.

I have been a flight sim enthusiast since my first IBM PC in 1982. I have learned through previous experiences doing same as to how to time my adoption of advances.  So understand that it is experience followed by the depth of available information, primarily on this site, that determines when I jump. Not my age!

[Humpty 751]

1 hour ago, GCBraun said:

For me P3Dv4 is great because it is 64 bits. I would still consider it vastly superior just because of that! Looking just from a graphics/FDE perspective though, it does not feel that different from FSX.

[GCBraun 2,390]

1 hour ago, fppilot said:

What I am about to say is all in good spirit, so please AVSIM don't play this into an inferno. Just know it lit at least a small fire here and let it now die out!

I am now retired so your age range description may fits, but the remainder of your SWAG is highly stereotypical and your overspeed warning is shaking.....  I like most, have a busy schedule and I value the time I can set aside for flying.  The reason I am not an early adopter of P3D is what I have read here over the past few years.  In Fall of 2015 I built a new state of the art system with the full intention of adopting P3D.  My specs are visible below.  Then some pretty significant issues were taking place with P3D. Sounded a lot like issues that cropped up with each new version of FS.  Based on the amount of time consumed to install a simulator from scratch, and all that goes with it, I made a decision to stick with  FSX for a minimum of a year to see what shakes out.  I did not get comfortable until recently, v4.  This (cold weather out) is my time of the year to fly.  

For example, I don't need to throw $1,000 at the latest vid card to get, now please take time to understand this, "the increment of difference" for how I fly.  The mid to high altitude and fast end of GA.  On that concept of "increment of difference " I will hold my tongue and not repeat your stereotypical mistake of calling out a generation.

I have been a flight sim enthusiast since my first IBM PC in 1982. I have learned through previous experiences doing same as to how to time my adoption of advances.  So understand that it is experience followed by the depth of available information, primarily on this site, that determines when I jump. Not my age!

Hey, please don`t take offense in what I said.Nothing in my comment implied that it was a dumb or idiotic move not to abandon FSX and try P3D or XP11. I was just attesting a fact that younger people seem to be starting on this hobby with the newest platforms, specially with XP11. Nothing more natural, right?

Go for whatever makes you happy! There is no "right" way to experience Flight Simulation...to each, his own.

[Boomer 1,619]

3 hours ago, HumptyDumpty said:

Can you be specific in what way "vastly" superior ?

No more ooms, which I got often, smoother play.

[Humpty 751]

1 minute ago, Boomer said:

No more ooms, which I got often, smoother play.

Is that all ?

[GCBraun 2,390]

59 minutes ago, HumptyDumpty said:

Hey, I think you did not follow the topic since the beginning. I am mostly a P3D user at this point, but I love XP11 and have been using it more and more. I also have DCS with multiple modules installed and see huge potential in Aerofly FS2! I`m as platform agnostic as you can get, therefore the rolling eyes emoji does not apply here, sorry. 

[anubhavs 66]

1 hour ago, GCBraun said:

Hey, please don`t take offense in what I said.Nothing in my comment implied that it was a dumb or idiotic move not to abandon FSX and try P3D or XP11. I was just attesting a fact that younger people seem to be starting on this hobby with the newest platforms, specially with XP11. Nothing more natural, right?

Go for whatever makes you happy! There is no "right" way to experience Flight Simulation...to each, his own.

Couldn't agree more. In general I have seen exactly what you have (of course there are exceptions). For the most part, there are 2 very distinct simmers:

a) the first is a more traditional, "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality. May or may not be correlated to age but their attitude is definitely one that is more resistant to change. They have a system that works, are not first adopters and prefer to wait and see the reviews before jumping in. In general, I tend to find these simmers more on the ESP platforms than the XP platforms. And hey, if it works for them, that's great! BTW, I think this is more AVSIM userbase.

b) the second are the more adventurous simmers. They happily install betas of new platforms, new versions and are constantly changing things up. Sometimes, they make bad decisions by jumping into addons too early, but they have a better sense of what the "roadmap" looks like. They end up on reddit, twitch, discord, follow livestreams and are constantly learning new technological developments. Again, I think XP is better suited for these simmers given that the entire XP ecosystem is very "beta" friendly.

I don't have the data to state if this is correlated with age, so will let that be.

BTW, the above isn't unique to flight simulation. We see this bifurcation that in every area - whether its smartphones, media consumption, cars etc.

From a purely personal standpoint, I used to be in the (a) category during my FSX/P3D days but have transitioned into the (b) category over the last year with XP and have found the hobby to be more rewarding than ever before. I am experimenting more, don't get bored easily, learning more, connecting more with twitch/discord/reddit and every month brings in something new and exciting!

[Humpty 751]

11 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

Hey, I think you did not follow the topic since the beginning. I am mostly a P3D user at this point, but I love XP11 and have been using it more and more. I also have DCS with multiple modules installed and see huge potential in Aerofly FS2! I`m as platform agnostic as you can get, therefore the rolling eyes emoji does not apply here, sorry. 

huh ? what ? did I even say you a P3der only or P3d is bad  ? look at what I have highlighted in bold sorry I can roll the eyes.

[AviatorMan 253]

I have to wonder about the marketing of the three platforms, especially P3D. I have never seen any LM advertisements for P3D outside of sim web sites such as Avsim, Flightsim.... But I did MS Flight Simulator in several versions for years, up through FS9, without being aware that these flight sim user web sites even existed. Didn't buy addons, just upgraded to the new version of Flight Simulator whenever a new one was released. How does LM promote its product outside of these web sites? I expect sells some of P3D on government contracts, and I know how they do that (I used to work for LM as a program manager, so I know how they do the defense and NASA side of marketing, but commercial products, don't know.) Anyone up to speed on this?

[jcomm 5,882]

The day LM or DTG aanounce a reworked / new flight dynamics engine, wake me up please, and I'll revisit FSW and P3D....

I actually would easily invest more in FSW than in P3D anyway, because for detailed Airbus, if you're really up to the challenge of managing an Airbus A320, there's nothing like Airlinetools A32x, and for the Boeings, sorry but I would still go Aerowinx PSX...

There are no miracles - no matter how many bits... 64, 128... whatever... the flight dynamics in the ESP/ MSFS derived platforms are out of sync with the times we now live.

X-Plane is progressing, and just recently it has gained even more sophistication in it's flight dynamics modelling prop aircraft with updated propwash calculations, and systems modelling for turboprop and jet aircraft. We are all looking forward for the upcoming HiFiTech weather engine for X-Plane, and we have such a remarkable coverage, at $0,00 cost of World scenery, to which we can add good payware airports and areas too, that scenery wise i think X-Plane is again one of the most tempting options for the future.

Then yes, there is AEFS2 - I keep an eye in it...

But for me, all of these civil sims are history... I'm at another beach, and ah! waiting Condorsoaring V2 too :-)

 

[Sartanius 399]

1 hour ago, AviatorMan said:

I have to wonder about the marketing of the three platforms, especially P3D. I have never seen any LM advertisements for P3D outside of sim web sites such as Avsim, Flightsim.... But I did MS Flight Simulator in several versions for years, up through FS9, without being aware that these flight sim user web sites even existed. Didn't buy addons, just upgraded to the new version of Flight Simulator whenever a new one was released. How does LM promote its product outside of these web sites? I expect sells some of P3D on government contracts, and I know how they do that (I used to work for LM as a program manager, so I know how they do the defense and NASA side of marketing, but commercial products, don't know.) Anyone up to speed on this?

Their agreement with Microsoft doesn't permit developing for the "personal entertainment" world, so no advertising to that community.  Having just retired from LM, I can assure you Prepar3D is "advertised" widely to the military aviation community.