The conspiracy theorist pop up. Does not surprise me in today's environment.

You should see some of the wild claims on Facebook groups 

33 minutes ago, ErichB said:

You should see some of the wild claims on Facebook groups 

Do I care what they claim lol, no I don't, as for FCB I left that one too but that's whole other story 🤣

Edited December 20, 20187 yr by awf

X-Plane is evidently not too popular on AVSIM in comparison to the Prepar3D Forums.  I would suspect most conversations are conducted on the X-Plane site or other forums.  Here's a chart from our system of New Topics created each month.

Jim, 

I don't think that new topic creation says much about sim popularity. I rarely tinker with XP11 and my collection of add-ons is simpler. My P3d4 setup is far more intricate and requires more maintenance and brainpower to keep it running smoothly.

You should take comfort that AVSim is popular among survey respondents. And to add to my first point, look at the respondents who visit .org. for XP help. It's a much smaller population according to the survey. That result is in line with my explanation of the difference in maintaining my two sim installations.

Jay

I for one could care less on who's the "winner", I only care about progress and development. It's good to see XP moving forward along side P3D. 

Edited December 20, 20187 yr by CarlosF

45 minutes ago, WarpD said:

Absolutely nothing about the question results provides indication about which sim has a higher usage or usage growth. 

I am not sure I would make this strong a statement but I do agree the survey does not provide me with meaningful insights. The questions were not precise enough, but more than that the sample is skewed, as many have pointed out.  I am pleased to see that there is increased usage of X-Plane. They have been at this a long time and certainly made an important contribution. Likely, many people in the last year have downloaded a copy of 11, which has received more attention and development than earlier versions, and tried it, and so the numbers of people responding to a question about using both sims increased.  So while I have used X-Plane to see what it is like, it is not the platform I use, nor is it the one I would choose to use at this time. I would not now purchase add-ons for it. I just do not have the time or the financial resources to maintain two sims.

Questions about the amount of money spent in a year may also not generate a lot of insight. This year, I replaced my video card at a cost of CDN$1,000 so when I completed the survey I included this -- I don't need a 1080Ti for word processing -- so my "hardware" expenses would be high. But that card will last me two or three years and then I will likely sell it and recoup some of that money. I certainly do not spend $1,000 per year as my response to the survey would suggest.

I completed the survey -- which took some 15 minutes, which confirms this is for relatively dedicated simmers -- but did not find the results too interesting, or the conclusions at all convincing. Perhaps it is more helpful to developers, although I think they likely have much better information and insight.

You know who is a real winner? We, the simmers.

All this boasting from some X-Plane users or some deluded denial from some P3D users is baffling.

In the end, good, healthy competition breeds progress for all.

Who knows if P3D would bring PBR now, if it wasn't an integral part of X-Plane 11? And ortho-like features in it now?

Developers learn from each other and that results in a better product for us all, so be happy.

(Consipracy theories are great though, keep them coming 😂.)

I am pretty sure that Ed is right (I cannot beleive I am agreeing with him but there ya go).

 

XP is popular... more than it was last year. Is it more so than P3D/FSX?  Certainly not when it comes to sales generated by the same product numbers.  In the same amount of time, for the same product, sales on the C310 were less than half on XP than they were on P3D/FSX.  That's a fact.

I'm not sure that I would consider doing a XP only product at this point... 

This is what I use to judge what serious simmers are using on a daily basis, Virtual airlines that record what users are using. The data is accurate, since it is compiled from Acars. 

Here is latest complete month, November , 2018 rounded off to whole numbers. 

 

FSX              49%

P3D  V 3-4      28%

FS 2004           9 %

 

X plaane 10-11     12%   

These are people that fly all the time, many are pilots in the real world. Other VA's have similar percentages.  So the FS and P3D platforms  have almost 80% of these users. XP 11 is a very small percentage, and always has been.  https://www.deltava.org/simversionstats.do

 

1 minute ago, Milviz said:

In the same amount of time, for the same product, sales on the C310 were less than half on XP than they were on P3D/FSX.  That's a fact.

My Analysis tells me lot of users buy XP11 for curiosity (This is how flying simmers are, looking always for something new), yet they own P3D, and as the survey indicates they spend more time on P3D than XP so accordingly they prefer to buy the products for P3D instead of XP.

The question is, if XP is so strong, then why users keep coming back to P3D 😉.

I concluded long time ago that investment as developer for XP is not for me, specially when Lockheed Martin is providing 3rd party developers like you and me lots of support, that is very valuable as developer, it ensures my time and investment on the platform is sound and strong.

Regards 

Simbol 

5 hours ago, ErichB said:

Why do we get so bent out of shape if our sim of choice gets less air time, doesn't win polls, gets less development time?   Even I sometimes feel like I need to defend P3D.

I haven't seen any posts with people getting emotional about this?  For single platform users its' about the fight for 3rd party developer resources, and they have a fair concern, those resource (ORBX and Aerosoft for example) have significantly reduce their FSX/P3D output in favor of XP11 output.  Since many don't want to operate two or more FS platforms either due to complexity of keeping both running well or costs involved in buying the same airport/scenery twice, they feel somewhat abandoned.  It's a legitimate concern for those who have invested a lot into a single platform.  But I think this has always been the case ... just not enough user "spending" going around to get enough resources to keep both sides of the FS platforms happy with new content.  However, I heard a rumor ORBX were hiring a lot more content providers so maybe the current state will "even out" in the near future?  It is a lot of work to make quality content.

8 hours ago, LB777 said:

Where did you find that estimate if I may ask?

Several sources along with my own informal polls and basic research.  The "gaming" industry (which includes mobile since it's 50% of that market, PC gaming around 25%) is around $138 Billion and growing rapidly every year ... one data point here another data point here  and another source here (click on the details graphs for data of interest).  It's not just males either, the age range is large (from young to old) and female players are operating on an almost equal usage to males.  Lots of data to be found that will give you an idea of how much individuals spend per year on gaming.

4 hours ago, Adrian123 said:

Now their is no doubt an elite group that spend thousands but the average Joe on our 50000.00 income, is not going to do that.

Not according to Global data I've seen ... the Navigraph average income number is close to global data which has it at 58,000.00 US, but since most data points don't specify the exact game type you could say FS is inclusive in that $2400/yr or more from the average income group (not an "elite group") ... but we already know that FS market is tiny relative to mainstream gaming but it does have a lot of DLC which apparently isn't being bought in equal amounts to mainstream gaming.  I find your choice of wording interesting "elite" ... you make it sound as if those very enthusiastic and support of flight simulation and what they like to do with the time are "a group of persons who by virtue of position or education exercise much power or influence" ... or maybe they are just passionate about flight simulation? 😉

 Cheers, Rob.

15 minutes ago, Milviz said:

XP is popular... more than it was last year. Is it more so than P3D/FSX?  Certainly not when it comes to sales generated by the same product numbers.  In the same amount of time, for the same product, sales on the C310 were less than half on XP than they were on P3D/FSX. 

That's pretty shallow review on your part then.

Firstly, Milviz had almost no marketing behind their C310. While it's pretty known brand in FSX/P3D, you are pretty unknown in X-Plane world, especially for simmers that are X-Plane exclusive. 

Most products are heavily marketed through the .org store forum, a lot of videos and "influencers. 

I must admit I haven't seen much of it til it actually dropped on the market. 

 

Secondly, you need to realize the market needs. When people say P3D is a tubeliner sim, it isn't na understatment. There aren't that much quality GA planes (of course, there was RealAir, there is A2A which is a class in itself), but it's certainly a market niche when it comes to real quality.

In X-Plane though, there are a lot of high quality options that can satisfy the niche of light twin GA flyhing. Not to mention Milviz released their addon right after another 310 hit the market. It certainly didn't help.

 

Am Is saying that you might get as good sale numbers as you can in P3D? Certainly not. You won't beat P3D market right now, especially combined with FSX.

But make something good that market isn't saturated with currently, and you won't be disappointed. 

 

6 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

This is what I use to judge what serious simmers are using on a daily basis, Virtual airlines that record what users are using. The data is accurate, since it is compiled from Acars. 

Serious simmers are judged by being a member of a virtual airline? Come on, be serious. It's not an indication at all.

Edited December 20, 20187 yr by katice

9 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

This is what I use to judge what serious simmers are using on a daily basis, Virtual airlines that record what users are using. The data is accurate, since it is compiled from Acars. 

Here is latest complete month, November , 2018 rounded off to whole numbers. 

 

FSX              49%

P3D  V 3-4      28%

FS 2004           9 %

 

X plaane 10-11     12%   

These are people that fly all the time, many are pilots in the real world. Other VA's have similar percentages.  So the FS and P3D platforms  have almost 80% of these users. XP 11 is a very small percentage, and always has been.  https://www.deltava.org/simversionstats.do

 

VAs is mostly a thing of the past at this point and most of its users are the least prone to change and experience a new platform, as shown by the FSX usage statistic.

VAs are totally fine, but I do not think their data give a good prognostic of where the simming market will be in 5 years. 

I would love to see the data from ProjectFly, on the other hand. 

Edited December 20, 20187 yr by GCBraun

8 minutes ago, katice said:

Serious simmers are judged by being a member of a virtual airline? Come on, be serious. It's not an indication at all.

Yeah,  I don't get that either @Bobsk8   In fact,  most VA flyers I'm aware of don't even use VATSIM.  They press buttons to communicate with ATC.