VR Inclusion in MSFS

[Casualcas 830]

On 10/5/2019 at 3:41 PM, Flybynumbers said:

I applaud your efforts. Maybe in a few years I will revisit VR...but it makes navigation and setting up instruments look like a real chore. I am thinking of upgrading my whole system to this:

 https://www.virtual-fly.com/shop/flightpanels/soloflightpanel-black-edition

Good god! 3,400 €? I'll stick with VR and have money left over to actually take a trip. But go for it if you can.

 

[denali 74]

Make no mistake about it, FS 2020 is ALL about VR.  Just like with this release of MSFS, MS is holding their cards very close to their chests on this.  But it's clear to understand this, that the only reason this update exists is to help MS get into a closer to pole position in VR in the race to market share, once you understand the genesis of the project is based in the Hololens project.  

Quote

But about five years ago Jeorg Neumann, a Microsoft executive, had an idea for the company’s Hololens  — its augmented and virtual reality headset. A feature, called Holotour, allowed you to explore San Francisco, the Collosseum in Rome and Machu Picchu in Peru. “It looked right, it felt right, it sounded right, but it was just three dots on Earth,” said Neumann. “I wonder if we can do this for the whole planet?”  

Neumann showed what he and a small team had created. Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of Gaming, put on the Hololens, running a rudimentary version of Neumann’s experiment. Spencer asked Neumann why he was being shown a video of Seattle. “And then I turned the plane,” Neumann recounted. “This is real. We can do this.”

And so Microsoft Flight Simulator was reborn.

https://theaircurrent.com/technology/exploring-the-big-sky-microsoft-is-creating-for-flight-simulator-2020/?fbclid=IwAR01iXxYvBxn4SLQtNW_Oi967_CVJ063aHiqbENv6fbzw68kJ26Ae_ga4es 

Edited October 7, 2019 by denali

[Heimi 91]

Can anyone explain me why there is on any new game (sim) so loud shouts to get VR?

It looks to me that it is still a minority and some research proofed that.

According to STEAM only 0.4% of the users use VR, and it is the biggest gaming community to date..

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Heimi

[Casualcas 830]

Maybe not all flightsims use Steam. Maybe not all games on steam are Flight simulators, how many left hand drive cars are in England?  Let's not get into statistics without a whole picture and complete numbers. We're guessing

[Heimi 91]

Well its the opposite i think. Mainstream vs. niche ?!?

[Casualcas 830]

That's my point. All of us as a whole are niche. It's all relative.

[HiFlyer 9,343]

1 hour ago, Heimi said:

It looks to me that it is still a minority and some research proofed that.

So...... Avsim in one form or another has been around for decades; and the last time I looked, as the largest flight simulation community had about 300,000 members though my info might be old and it could be larger now.

The Computer VR revolution started in about 2012 with the oculus DK1, (not even a single decade) and is now part of a market estimated by many to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by 2022 and has already reached about 15 billion in 2019, with tens of millions of users worldwide.

Even on the lower side, estimates of growth dwarf our wildest dreams in this genre.

So its with quite a bit of puzzlement that I have seen repeated attempts throughout multiple threads to represent how "small" a market vr is.

Only carefully chosen evidence supports that in any way, and even that supposed evidence only does so as long as its taken completely at face value with no effort at additional research.

As I mentioned previously regarding Steam, even just 1% (much less 4%) of the 90 million Steam users worldwide (900,000) would likely outnumber quite handily the entire population of the active civilian simulation market.

Keeping it simple, I would posit that if potential sales numbers were the sole determiner and I were Microsoft, I would actually be quite foolish to discount a market estimated to reach several hundred billion in sales by 2022 for the, what was the term....? "Loud shouts" of a comparatively small niche community.

Something one might stop to consider when unhappy about the vocalness of supposedly smaller communities, because if there is anything in the world that represents a "small" community, its civilian aviation simulation rather than vr.

https://techjury.net/stats-about/virtual-reality/

[Heimi 91]

I think i slowly understand...

Flightsim you see as a niche, VR is a niche...  But VR inside flightsim is not a niche but majority?

Well i dont think flightsim in general is a niche. All MSFS`s have been topseller in the gaming industry since the beginning until FSX died for the mainstream than it went into a niche....

 

[nickhod 425]

1 hour ago, Heimi said:

Can anyone explain me why there is on any new game (sim) so loud shouts to get VR?

It looks to me that it is still a minority and some research proofed that.

According to STEAM only 0.4% of the users use VR, and it is the biggest gaming community to date..

How many Steam users do you think have a flight yoke? Should MSFS support those?

People keep bringing up these Steam stats, but they are completely pointless in this context.

[Casualcas 830]

Or flightsim in general. 

Flyinside has it

Fsx has it

Xplane has it

Il2 has it

Dcs has it

P3d has it

Fs2 has it

I think theres a market. Lol

[HiFlyer 9,343]

3 minutes ago, Heimi said:

Well i dont think flightsim in general is a niche. All MSFS`s have been topseller in the gaming industry since the beginning until FSX died for the mainstream than it went into a niche....

At its most, I think FSX sold about 1 million copies (maybe more) and the community has pointed to that number ever since as an indicator of our market strength. Which sounds good right up until you compare it to about a days worth of sales for any major video game title.

Or the 5 million in sales (as of a few years ago) of something like War Thunder, which most definitely has Vr.

 

[Quasimodo 505]

I don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread before but when I signed up for the alpha there was definitely at least 1 question on the survey that pertained to VR. I think they asked if I used a VR headset or something like that. Can't remember exactly, but the fact that it was asked seems to me to indicate that VR is in the mix.

[Casualcas 830]

1 minute ago, Avidean said:

I don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread before but when I signed up for the alpha there was definitely at least 1 question on the survey that pertained to VR. I think they asked if I used a VR headset or something like that. Can't remember exactly, but the fact that it was asked seems to me to indicate that VR is in the mix.

It was there.  Yep

[TechguyMaxC 516]

2 minutes ago, Avidean said:

I don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread before but when I signed up for the alpha there was definitely at least 1 question on the survey that pertained to VR. I think they asked if I used a VR headset or something like that. Can't remember exactly, but the fact that it was asked seems to me to indicate that VR is in the mix.

Huh, so instead of spamming reddit to recruit users to come here and skew the results of this (meaningless) poll, if people ACTUALLY cared about VR they should sign up for the tech alpha?

Nah, that sounds like work.  Why take actions that could potentially influence the outcome in a positive direction when we could just have a poll instead?

[HiFlyer 9,343]

3 minutes ago, TechguyMaxC said:

Huh, so instead of spamming reddit to recruit users to come here and skew the results of this (meaningless) poll, if people ACTUALLY cared about VR they should sign up for the tech alpha?

Nah, that sounds like work.  Why take actions that could potentially influence the outcome in a positive direction when we could just have a poll instead?

So...... who says that vr users have not signed up in droves? Do you have inside info that they have not?