Expect a huge increase on the Aerofly FS 2 market share in the following years. Aerofly FS 2 is excellent, ORBX is aggresively supporting it and to tell the true, is taken me out of P3D progressively.

Cheers, Ed

AFS2 is an interesting contender for sure, but until there is AI with cars, ships, aircraft and ATC I fear many like me gets bored rather quickly.

5 hours ago, simmerhead said:

The only thing that hasn't changed in the last decade is that you still can't enjoy the sim with all it's bells and whistles - even with the absolute best hardware money can buy :) 

That, my friend, is a good thing.  We need software to drive hardware.  It is good that we are always trying to catch up to where the software is. That means simulator feature sets are expanding and requiring more and more resources.  And yes, I see your smiley face, so I know how you meant this... but, although performance can be frustrating at times, I'm OK with being a bit behind the curve since I know the trade-off is better and better simulator capabilities.  This is just my perspective and is by no means intended to be argumentative.  Happy New Year!

Quote

We need software to drive hardware.

That will be like puting the horses behind the carriage. Besides, youth shouldn't wait for the ones now in the past to catch up. Humanity plows forward cause that's how we arrived here. We'll catch our breath on the move not by stopping.

Cheers, 

1 hour ago, edpatino said:

Expect a huge increase on the Aerofly FS 2 market share in the following years. Aerofly FS 2 is excellent, ORBX is aggresively supporting it and to tell the true, is taken me out of P3D progressively.

Cheers, Ed

I think Aerofly has with GA aircraft the same problem XP still has with airliners. Whilst it is a very promising platform, specially for VFR flying, it does not have any advanced aircraft and, at least for me, that is a show stopper. At least for XP we are seeing more and more quality aircraft being released. Hopefully that is also the case for AF sooner than later. 

5 hours ago, simmerhead said:

The only thing that hasn't changed in the last decade is that you still can't enjoy the sim with all it's bells and whistles - even with the absolute best hardware money can buy

I hope that will never happen.  If your desire comes true, it will be a sad day for Flight Simulation, it will mean FS platforms are not progressing in their abilities to get closer to "reality" and/or content providers are not pushing the visual envelope.

With that said, I think AF2 is probably the ONLY platform that can max everything with all add-ons and sustain over 60 FPS.

None of the above data really means much at all:

1.  We don't know how many people are using flight sims that aren't steam enabled/aware
2.  Number of 3rd party developers for each platform
3.  Sales numbers being reported from those 3rd party developers (which are extremely difficult to obtain)

"Out of the box" to end users, Xplane11 offers more than any other platform.  However, 3rd party support and a powerful SDK can elevate other platforms for a more "complete" experience.  I think the two current key players are P3D and XP and users are slowly migrating away from FSX/FSX-SE and selecting either P3D or XP.  It's hard to maintain multiple platforms (cost and time investment) and both XP and P3D cost about the same $60.  For many I think the issue is mostly cost related, how much will it cost to upgrade my existing FSX content to P3D V4.x or go with a new platform XP and buy new content or use free content.

But I must admit, I am a little puzzle at why there are still many FSX/FSX-SE users, I guess they've just learnt to work around OOMs and limit their add-on experience or have a key add-on that never got migrated to P3D V4.x so sticking with FSX/FSX-SE.  It's certainly an odd dynamic (not suggesting anything negative or bad with the dynamic), at one end of the flight sim spectrum you have those that don't like change and at the other you have those who embrace and want more change (and as far as I can tell it has nothing to do with age).

I still believe Flight simulation is a relatively small market compared to AA 3D shooter titles (those sell 8 Million units in 2 weeks or even titles like Goat Simulator that sold 1 Million units in one month), however, no AA title has anything like the 3rd party support that Flight Simulators do (not even close).  I'm not sure FS will ever be able to draw in those AA title fans because there is no realistic way to implement that level of visual detail at a Global scale on today or tomorrow's hardware.  For many 3D shooter types they want a "purpose", flight experience alone isn't enough for those AA title fans that want a script and some level of gratification for a task completed ... they don't care about what a view distance means and LODs, nor polygon counts, nor textures sizes, nor PBR, JBR, XBR, HDR, ORL, etc. ... they just don't care, they see a CGI movie (good CGI you really can't distinguish) and/or a 3D shooter optimized for a very specific poly count/distance and think that because it "can be done" it should also be done in flight simulators, not understanding the technology behind it.  CGI movies and 3D shooters have built up a level of expectations such that when one enters a Flight simulator they are disappointed.

With that said, 2018 is looking to be a great year for Flight Simulation ... lots of new titles on the horizon expanding the visual feast and increasing the experience ... my hope is it will bring in more New users, and/or bring back old users that gave up or took a break from flight simulation.

Cheers, Rob.

1 hour ago, GCBraun said:

I think Aerofly has with GA aircraft the same problem XP still has with airliners. Whilst it is a very promising platform, specially for VFR flying, it does not have any advanced aircraft and, at least for me, that is a show stopper. At least for XP we are seeing more and more quality aircraft being released. Hopefully that is also the case for AF sooner than later. 

Please remember that Aerofly has just left the Early-Access stage this month, and it's now an officially stable platform, so we expect that new developers will come into the arena and develop study-level aircraft sooner than later. Regarding complexity, AFS2 has already produced the Q400 which, if it's not as complex as the Majestic for P3D/FSX, requires some degree of reading to fly it properly, apart of being superbly modelled both internally and externally, to the highest standards of realism.

Additionally, for those lovers of VR (Virtual Reality) flying, as almost all of us are, AFS2 offers IMHO the best flightsim platform currently available, due to its high fluidity and graphics quality.

Cheers, Ed

5 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

But I must admit, I am a little puzzle at why there are still many FSX/FSX-SE users, I guess they've just learnt to work around OOMs and limit their add-on experience or have a key add-on that never got migrated to P3D V4.x so sticking with FSX/FSX-SE.  It's certainly an odd dynamic (not suggesting anything negative or bad with the dynamic), at one end of the flight sim spectrum you have those that don't like change and at the other you have those who embrace and want more change (and as far as I can tell it has nothing to do with age).

I’m still an FSX hold over.

The reason for me sticking to FSX still is not about money, having to repurchase some addons, or anything of that nature.

For me it’s all about time and effort. I’ve come to have such a built up version of FSX with addons, AI, some custom AI, tweaks, etc., that I just don’t have the energy or willingness to start all over again with a fresh install of P3D.

I primarily fly PMDG aircraft and own just about every major airport that you’d fly these into and have still never had an OOM. The only reason I’d like to switch to P3D is for the cloud shadows but I don’t care about them enough to switch yet. Plus all the P3D updates that come or while new versions is just more work that I’d like to put in.

If I get P3D I’d need to upgrade my whole rig, rebuilt AI with compatible models, reinstall all addons (that alone would take me a few weeks), repurchase some addons, reapply paints for repurchased PMDG planes, etc.

It would probably take me a month or more to get it all set up the way I want and would involve more time than I want to expend.

If it were as simple as giving someone $4000 dollars and saying give me a new rig, install all my addons and set up the OS and everything required and do it in a week, then I’d switch. I just have too many other hobbies and interests to start over at this point.

I figure when my current rig dies and I have to rebuild and hopefully P3D has finally reached a final version, then I’ll go for it.

20 minutes ago, cmpbellsjc said:

I’m still an FSX hold over.

The reason for me sticking to FSX still is not about money, having to repurchase some addons, or anything of that nature.

For me it’s all about time and effort. I’ve come to have such a built up version of FSX with addons, AI, some custom AI, tweaks, etc., that I just don’t have the energy or willingness to start all over again with a fresh install of P3D.

I primarily fly PMDG aircraft and own just about every major airport that you’d fly these into and have still never had an OOM. The only reason I’d like to switch to P3D is for the cloud shadows but I don’t care about them enough to switch yet. Plus all the P3D updates that come or while new versions is just more work that I’d like to put in.

If I get P3D I’d need to upgrade my whole rig, rebuilt AI with compatible models, reinstall all addons (that alone would take me a few weeks), repurchase some addons, reapply paints for repurchased PMDG planes, etc.

It would probably take me a month or more to get it all set up the way I want and would involve more time than I want to expend.

If it were as simple as giving someone $4000 dollars and saying give me a new rig, install all my addons and set up the OS and everything required and do it in a week, then I’d switch. I just have too many other hobbies and interests to start over at this point.

I figure when my current rig dies and I have to rebuild and hopefully P3D has finally reached a final version, then I’ll go for it.

yep  iam still on fsx  and  have  no issues  at all,  the only way i will switch over only  if  i upgrade  my  pc

22 minutes ago, cmpbellsjc said:

For me it’s all about time and effort. I’ve come to have such a built up version of FSX with addons, AI, some custom AI, tweaks, etc., that I just don’t have the energy or willingness to start all over again with a fresh install of P3D.

Amen! Exactly my position. I do not have OOM issues and I fly with lots of photoscenery, high quality weather, and sophisticated GA aircraft with sophisticated add-on avionics.  If it ain't broke don't fix it.  And if not in the process of fixing.... why take time answering surveys?  Rather spend my time flying, and helping others here. 

I was an old FSX and then FSX SE user.

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

38 minutes ago, fppilot said:

I do not have OOM issues

Well I did with 32 bit fsx flying my pmdg birds and at the worst times...over the outer marker on landing after hours of vatsim flight.

3 hours ago, Boomer said:

Well I did with 32 bit fsx flying my pmdg birds and at the worst times...over the outer marker on landing after hours of vatsim flight.

so  you don't  get  ooms  with  p3d?

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...

I 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.

I grew up with FS 5.1 and FS98 and I will always have a special place in my heart for Flight Simulator and its ESP offspring. Nevertheless, if I was starting out today in this hobby as a young person with limited resources, it would be very hard not to go into the XP11 route. 

 

Flightsim is also high on FS9 users judging by the freeware uploads and some are staying there running flat out on what today would be a mid spec PC with a ton of addons.

Gary at UK2000 scenery said he was dropping FS9 Scenery in future did not go down well with some.

As they do have limited resources and cannot afford PC`s that will run high end sims, I did try XP 11 on my i5 3.4ghz gtx 960 not without issue`s and I'm not a sunshine state flyer clear sky`s 3000 ft type.