So what happened to Navigraph survey results?

[Adrian123 1,015]

For as high a number of folks using FS for entertainment, there is a high number of P3d users? 😉

Edited December 19, 2018 by Adrian123

[pracines 823]

I think the blog charts are being read wrong. P3D v4 is still the clear winner (most of the time/frequently).

Funny how this survey is doing all it can (in comment and portrayal) to make XP out to be the winner. I think that is a huge mistake. Is this an attempt to force LM to do more over a shorter period of time? Or is it an attempt to force LM out of the homebased sim market? If there were a million+ participants I think this survey would look totally different.

Also, of the organizations that participated, one is AF2 (?), and the other is Laminar itself (???)….real objective, yea right. Where was Lockheed Martin? Yet they still won.

So, don't kid yourselves people - open your eyes.

I don't hate XP11, or AF2, and I have both, but neither in a fully loaded DLC state compare to P3Dv4.4 in a fully loaded DLC state.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Adrian123 said:

For as high a number of folks using FS for entertainment, there is a high number of P3d users?

EULA indirection ... so are you saying XP11 is "lesser" because it's for entertainment? 😉

1 hour ago, GCBraun said:

especially because it is a Navigraph survey and I assume that most users have their subscription

Yes ... isn't it ... hmmm ...

P3D's biggest problem right now is getting developers to stop using FS9/FSX SDK to produce products "compatible with P3D" (well sort of compatible) ... most (not all) developers do NOT want to take the time and energy to learn the P3D SDK/PDK and what it has to offer well beyond the limits of the FS9/FSX SDK.  Implications are the need to have two development paths because using features in P3D V4.4 would exclude them working in FSX/FS9.  Of course, developers keep saying "oh next version of P3D we'll drop FS9/FSX SDK" ... so the next major version comes along and they don't ... keep using FS9/FSX SDK.  The very compatibility LM provide is the very reason many (not all) developers continue using FS9/FSX SDK ... so sadly for P3D, we never see the light of day of all the MANY new features in the P3D SDK.  I'm sure they sing the same song, in V5 will be sure to use the P3D SDK ... as they've said for every subsequent major version of P3D.

The result is we don't see new features showcased in P3D, we just get whatever works in FS9/FSX.

In the meantime other platforms like XP11 continue forward and for the most part don't really care about backwards compatibility ... I still can't use my xEnviro (has been almost a year now with broken functionality since XP11 updates), and now VC lights not working in 11.3x, etc. etc. ... so XP11 moves forward at the cost of compatibility.  As Raul pointed out, aircraft lights in XP11 are horrible and there is apparently no solution.  Then we move onto "effects" in XP11, really, that's it ... not even close to what OldProp can do with their line of FX products.  I'm a big fan of HiFi weather engine, but sad to say it doesn't look as good in XP11 as it does in P3D.

One of the things this survey does tell me is that PR (photoreal) scenery is VERY important even if it has no seasons.  Now that P3D V4.4 can do high quality PR without any changes to existing content providers, that'll have a user usage influence.

Cheers, Rob.

 

Edited December 19, 2018 by Guest

[Adrian123 1,015]

18 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

EULA indirection ... so are you saying XP11 is "lesser" because it's for entertainment?

Nope, just an interesting observation IMO. I don;t get into the "ones better than the other" debate. They are equally good IMO.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Adrian123

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

1 hour ago, simbol said:

Oddly enough, I get around 1 to 3 XP users a month which email me asking if I can develop my tools for XP, which after explaining to them it is not possible as the SDK provided for XPLANE is too weak, they end up using PD3 instead just to enjoy my effects.

 

I appreciate the insight, but i really don't believe that someone, who is enjoying XP, will just decide to buy a P3D License and various addons for it just to enjoy your effects.

Edited December 19, 2018 by france89

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, france89 said:

I appreciate the insight, but i really don't believe that someone, who is enjoying XP, will just decide to buy a P3D License and various addons for it just to enjoy your effects.

You'll be surprised at what others like ... I know P3D users that bought XP11 just because of sloped runways ... I know XP11 users that bought P3D just for better rain effects from TrueGlass ... you'll be surprised and like I suggested earlier there are many more cross platform users with both P3D and XP11.  Giving up a platform is not a requirement.

For me, it's who's got the most robust SDK/PDK and how easy/hard is it to use ... most of the P3D content over the years is from the FS9/FSX SDK ... now look at how much people spend on software per year ... I can understand why 3rd party are resistant to increasing their work loads (two development paths FSX and P3D) and/or giving up every drop of possible revenue from FSX sales.

Also factor in that I would guess much or Orbx's money/investments into funding XP11 projects comes from all the FSX/P3D projects.  Overall, I think it's better to look at flight simmers as a whole and not A or B, but rather A and B ... both can benefit and hopefully end users too.

Like I suggested, the worry is $200 annually for 3rd party content purchases ... if you look at other parts of the "gaming" industry (not flight simulators) you'll see survey data showing $200/mo (not  year).

Rob.

[HiFlyer 9,374]

3 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

EDIT: what the heck is "Discord"?

Its where more and more simmers and such hang out, when forums start to seem a bit closed in. You can even say EULA there without Thor immediately sending Mjolnir your way. 😋

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

You can even say EULA there without Thor immediately sending Mjolnir your way.

I'm all for venting and freedom of speech and places to go to "express" yourself (I think it's good to get stuff off one's chest) ... but sometimes I want just facts, no fiction, no opinion, just relevant content that I can decide on ... whatever agreements I enter into is none of anyone else's business ... this service called AVSIM is provided for free and I've accepted it's terms of use.

Cheers, Rob.

[HiFlyer 9,374]

15 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

I'm all for venting and freedom of speech and places to go to "express" yourself (I think it's good to get stuff off one's chest) ... but sometimes I want just facts, no fiction, no opinion, just relevant content that I can decide on ... whatever agreements I enter into is none of anyone else's business ... this service called AVSIM is provided for free and I've accepted it's terms of use.

Cheers, Rob.

You asked what discord was and I replied. I don't think facts and free expression at someplace like discord, or reddit (or wherever) are even mildly mutually exclusive, (and it's not like speculation does not occur in forums, as I suspect a lot of this thread will consist of exactly that)

I also think we all know what the terms of use here are, which is why it's cool to be able to take it someplace else sometimes, and why such places are showing increasing popularity while existing side by side with standard forums.

 

[ErichB 3,651]

3 hours ago, pracines said:

I think the blog charts are being read wrong. P3D v4 is still the clear winner (most of the time/frequentl

Yup, agree.  Having looked at the results a little more analytically, P3D is still more popular in term of overall preference and time spent in the sim.  Those bar graphs are a bit deceiving at first glance.  But  XP has shown bigger growth.  I bought XP 11, in the same way I bought XP10 and XP9.  But I cannot make friends with XP.  Many see its benefits and that's super.  I think it deserves its space.  But...

[WarpD 824]

The problem with that graph is the question.  Anyone actually remember the actual question response format?  Was it possible to select "most of the time" for more than one sim?

[G-RFRY 1,728]

So 15000 users make up the majority of flight simmers if that's the case is there any future for it.

FSX sold well over a million they have left the building.

Edited December 19, 2018 by rjfry

[Guest]

1 hour ago, ErichB said:

But  XP has shown bigger growth.

Absolutely more growth, Navigraph provided 2017 numbers to compare and as far as I can see it's grown by a factor of 2X over 2017.  I would have been nice to see how many respondents were both XP11 and P3D users ... you know, us crazy ones that pay twice for the same airport just different platform 🙂

29 minutes ago, rjfry said:

So 15000 users make up the majority of flight simmers

Of course not, but it's still a pretty good number of respondents and as pointed out, Navigraph customers so likely to be those more serious about their simulators ... but if flight simulation is to ever snag a larger user base, they'll need to provide BFV level of graphics on a global scale ... not impossible, just not currently possible with home computing hardware.

Cheers, Rob.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Guest

[ryanbatc 13,028]

I think 15k describes the niche simmers who like us, are heavily invested in p3d3or xp11.  Meaning somewhat expensive hardware, spend a lot on software (which btw I think people underestimate what they spent lol), and do use flight planners and online flight often.

The million who purchased fsx was mostly people who went to a retail store and bought the sim and likely don't use it anymore... They probably don't buy add-ons either

[fs4fun 366]

15k is a very good sample size for this niche community. How many flightsim enthusiasts are there worldwide? Maybe 300k? There are sample size calculators online and for that size population 15k gives a very high confidence and low error result.

On the other hand this is statistics and it's easy to generate misleading results. For example there are still lots of FSX/FSXSE users but they probably don't spend much on addons, so they will skew the addon spend figures downward compared to users whose primary sim is one of the leading platforms. It would be good to see the spend numbers on a per-platform basis or at least isolated to just XP11/P3DV4.