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[byork 2,258]

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[MarkW 1,490]

Bryan, any reason you don't develop FS2Crew for X-Plane?  It seems like the market is split mainly between P3D and X-Plane these days.

[ckyliu 1,749]

@MarkW I don't want to put words in Bryan's mouth but Xplane is almost double the work vs the question being asked; FSX code can be adapted to work in P3Dx64 for the same addon aircraft. With Xplane you are starting from zero as there is almost no code commonality, although the SOP and flow research plus audio recordings would be reusable (assuming it's a type Bryan's already done).

That means time spent developing for Xplane has an opportunity cost of developing for P3D, and I think P3D still has the lion's share of the airliner market although that balance is changing. There is also the "setup cost" of developing for Xplane, i.e. time spent learning how to code for it. Of course, if all the popular P3D airliners are already covered then it makes sense to invest time in a popular Xplane airliner like the Zibo or FlightFactor.

IMO I think most FS2Crew customers are fairly hardcore airliner nuts, the very same people who are most likely to have already shifted from FSX to P3D. There's a lot of people remaining on FSX but I'm not sure many of those are likely to purchase FS2Crew as they are generally more casual or budget constrained users. Whilst only the sales figure splits can say for sure, I think the pivot point of dropping FSX development has arrived.

Edited April 29, 2019 by ckyliu

[byork 2,258]

Indeed.

X-Plane is a nice sim, but supporting X-Plane is a lot more complex than just pressing a button.  I wish it were that easy 😉

It took me a long time to get comfortable with FSX/P3D... lord only knows how long it would take to figure out all the weirdness in X-Plane.

Most developers are just indie developers.  We don't have teams of 50 programmers to support every version of FSX, P3D, X-Plane, etc.

Maintaining all that would just be a nightmare.

 

Also, we're pretty convinced the overwhelming majority of payware customers stick to P3D/FSX.

There's a fairly vocal group X-Plane fans who like to jump on every thread (not you Mark 🙂 ), but I think they're kind of a loud minority.

 

[MarkW 1,490]

I recognize that X-Plane would be a completely new endeavor and require a ground up build of each plane with no porting possible.  I was just thinking of a market that now has some very high end addons and may open up an opportunity.  One thing I have no idea about is your capacity to take on more FS2Crew projects.  If you have no time then it does not make sense to go down this road. (by the way, I don't own X-Plane and have never used it).

Edited April 29, 2019 by MarkW