Navigraph Flightsim Survey results published

[pmb 5,137]

Seems time to leave that hobby. And divert my 1000 $/year for software alone to something better. Neither will I (i) go on stuffing a dying sim, nor (ii) start over with one I never really made friends with, nor (iii) do both in parallel.

Kind regards, Michael

Edited December 19, 2018 by pmb

[kingm56 1,031]

1 hour ago, beechcaptain said:

Unless I missed it in the survey results, I would like to see the actual number of users responding for each version used, as in number of persons using P3Dv4 regularaly and number of persons using XP11 regularly.  This would give me a better idea of which is more popular. Not just percentages but actual number of respondents. 

Without that data, the survey is rather pointless; to that point, it’s focused on a single segment (ie NAVAGRAPH customers), which precludes huge segments of our hobby. How often have PMDG and Aerosoft cautioned us not to assume that moderate/hardcore simmers represent the bulk of the market. In point of fact, we do not. As an example, I doubt the >100K ‘kids’ who follow YouTubers like AFProud are represented in this survey.  The survey is only indicative of a very specific customer base; furthermore , without the raw numbers, we have know idea how effective it was.  Speaking anecdotally,  I know I didn’t participate; with NAVIGRAPH’s awesome app, there’s little reason to visit the website. There’s no doubt X-Plane is growing; in fact, I envision myself moving to it exclusively in 3 to 4 years. Yet, I don’t think it’s a widely popular as this survey would like us to believe....

[anden145 2,285]

8 minutes ago, kingm56 said:

Without that data, the survey is rather pointless; to that point, it’s focused on a single segment (ie NAVAGRAPH customers), which precludes huge segments of our hobby. How often have PMDG and Aerosoft cautioned us not to assume that moderate/hardcore simmers represent the bulk of the market. In point of fact, we do not. As an example, I doubt the >100K ‘kids’ who follow YouTubers like AFProud are represented in this survey.  The survey is only indicative of a very specific customer base; furthermore , without the raw numbers, we have know idea how effective it was.  Speaking anecdotally,  I know I didn’t participate; with NAVIGRAPH’s awesome app, there’s little reason to visit the website. There’s no doubt X-Plane is growing; in fact, I envision myself moving to it exclusively in 3 to 4 years. Yet, I don’t think it’s a widely popular as this survey would like us to believe....

+1

[virtualstuff 758]

2 hours ago, simbol said:

This is the difficulty, the SDK for XP lacks the power to allow 3rd party developers to push towards this end.

Unless LS do these things themselves, I don't see it happening.

Regards,

Simbol 

I agree Simbol that's why I said it needs to mature 😉

[simbol 5,821]

2 hours ago, Matthijs said:

Lacks? Well I don’t agree on that. It is something different than the ‘good old’ ESP FSX/P3D SDK. But we can’t stay forever with this “old” SDK and Engine. 

The P3D SDK is currently one of the largest and powerful interface to develop 3rd party content for a game.

You could compare it with unreal engine for example.

And just to make it clear, it is not even close to what Microsoft FSX SDK was.. (20 year old)

P3D allows you to implement your own simulation, custom sub systems, you could use scale forms for gauges, or you could change the entire skin of P3D using Scale forms, you can create amazing effects, hell you can create passengers and make them board the aircraft as somebody already did (not possible to do for XP right now), you can basically imagine any additional add-on and be able to create it for P3D.

Both SDK are available for public access, just compare how many functions are available for each.. There is a reason why there is such incredible study type Airplanes available for P3D and no XP.

Don't get me wrong, XP has it things.. But I find as a developer that their SDK is weak, if you want to develop something special that is not an airplane or an airport, you don't have the tools to do so, unless of course Laminar Research decides to work privately with you for their own interests..

Regards 

Simbol 

 

Edited December 19, 2018 by simbol

[Guest]

Some good points, this is a Navigraph survey so it's likely to only skew to the more serious simulator users.  But like I said earlier, this survey was also performed before P3D v4.4 was released and as we know PBR is now supported along with hi-resolution photo real scenery.  But there is no PBR content yet available for P3D, it's coming ... slowly.

Both platform SDK/PDKs are public ... it's fairly easy to determine which is the stronger of the two and offers more features to developers (or anyone that wants to enter into doing their own content) .. browse thru them and decide for yourself.  

The new to XP11 developers are enjoying a honeymoon with XP11, they don't have to worry about "upgrade paths" for now, nor upgrade pricing, but when XP11 version changes ... I can assure you, if XP11 does continue to ignore compatibility between version releases, these same devs will turn on XP11 rather quickly just as they would with LM.  Many P3D products for sale haven't actually touched the P3D SDK (still using the FS9/FSX SDK) since these are now some of the same developers producing XP11 content then I'm not seeing how they'll treat this any differently moving forward.

But the key for me was the $200/annual ... be it XP11 or P3D ... that's were I see the big red flag and it isn't platform specific.

Cheers, Rob.

[G-RFRY 1,712]

I don't think it will bother LM were they come in a survey I don't think they will throw the towel in that's not the point of P3D.

[pmb 5,137]

14 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

But the key for me was the $200/annual ... be it XP11 or P3D ... that's were I see the big red flag and it isn't platform specific.

I think that's part of the game. The - supposedly - growing number of XP users isn't used to spend a lot of money for addons. Perhaps an Airfoillabs plane and a Mister X scenery per year, the rest is Orthos and other freeware. Okay, factor in one of the recent ORBX TrueThingys now, but that's it.

While the number of P3D users being used to heavily investing is - supposedly again - diminishing.

Kind regards, Michael

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, pmb said:

While the number of P3D users being used to heavily investing

But that just it, it's NOT heavily investing ... the console and 3D shooter world or any world outside of flight simulation and those users are spending $200 per month so about $2400/yr (averages) ... so we have FS at $200/yr vs. other at $2400/yr ... so clearly users of all ages have money to spend, just not on flight sims.  Or, the other conclusion is most of FS software is illegally obtained (Torrents, PirateBay, etc.) ... but even if the spending discrepancy was due to piracy, that still would NOT account for such a massive difference in spending habits between markets.

Cheers, Rob.

[BobFS88 638]

4 hours ago, beechcaptain said:

Unless I missed it in the survey results, I would like to see the actual number of users responding for each version used, as in number of persons using P3Dv4 regularaly and number of persons using XP11 regularly.  This would give me a better idea of which is more popular. Not just percentages but actual number of respondents. 

beechcaptain

I am not sure if you saw it but there is a link midway down from the top of the result web page with final report link to a pdf file that you download or look at it online that has the break down of all the question of all the category.

It also has the results from the previous survey and how they rank from 2017 to 2018. It doesn't have exact numbers, except the numbers who participated, which from the previous year has grown considerable in terms of the number of participant in the survey.  

Bob

 

Edited December 19, 2018 by BobFS88

[CFIJose 5,485]

Good to see that the other sim is gaining popularity. More than likely this is attributed to ORBX coming on board. 😀

Just kidding, but it's amazing how much interest there is in the other sim since TrueEarth GB was released.

[signmanbob 592]

7 hours ago, Clutch Cargo said:

LM better up there game! 😀  I was surprised to see even the original P3D (version 1), is still being used.

I'm surprised to see that FS2002 is still being used by someone.😲

[signmanbob 592]

1 hour ago, Rob Ainscough said:

But that just it, it's NOT heavily investing ... the console and 3D shooter world or any world outside of flight simulation and those users are spending $200 per month so about $2400/yr (averages) ... so we have FS at $200/yr vs. other at $2400/yr ... so clearly users of all ages have money to spend, just not on flight sims.  Or, the other conclusion is most of FS software is illegally obtained (Torrents, PirateBay, etc.) ... but even if the spending discrepancy was due to piracy, that still would NOT account for such a massive difference in spending habits between markets.

Cheers, Rob.

I have spent $200 on the flightsim, but you can only put so many airports and aircraft in before your sim starts getting bloated.

[Patco Lch 1,465]

Not being a RW pilot I greatly appreciate those commercial pilots who contrbute their experience for us non fliers to benefit from and enhance our simming.
Having said that I chuckled at the large percentage of non pilots who sim for a hobby. I think back to my short ATC career. Believe me, after a shift the last thing I wanted to do would be to go home and get on a home PC (if they had them in those days)  and play controller. I wanted to forget that job if I could for a while. In fact a truck driver sim didn't interest me during my last job.

I can see after a trip of several days in the hectic high paced world of commercial aviation a flight sim hobby may not be too appealing to a professional Aviator.

 

[edpatino 1,964]

6 hours ago, pracines said:

Amazing how XP was touted to be the winner when they were not.

Obviously they needed to give credit to one of the sponsors, rather evident.

But, anyway, I prefer to do a complete reading of the report before making any further judgment. My initial impression was regarding that "typical flight simmer flying XP-11 most of the time", something to me it´s not what you feel when you´re browsing at AVSIM.

Cheers, Ed

Edited December 20, 2018 by edpatino