Should You Stop Buying P3D/X-Plane Addons? The MFS Effect

[Chock 17,769]

18 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

I'm not so sure that it's going take years until we will have so-called "study level" airliners in MSFS. I rather expect that to be a question of a few months if not even the included A320 and B748 will already fall into that category.

From what I've seen of the included airliners (which admittedly is not much), I suspect that they will be a step up from what has previously been included in iterations of FS, but I seriously doubt that they will be akin to the kind of things we find in the Majestic Dash 8 or the FSL A320. There is a precedent for this which we can extrapolate to some degree of course; the default included airliners in successive versions of FS over the years have, generally speaking, got a little bit more fancy over time, but in fairness, most of that has tended to be either visual or inclusive of the capabilities of the sim (i.e. getting virtual cockpits or being able to use built-in IFR ATC).

Recall if you will that it's really not that long ago (i.e. around the time of FS98-FS2004) when the fuselages and engine pods of aircraft were lauded over if their circular form included more than 12 polygons to make up that circular shape, so it has in large part been a visual advancement which has been the main marketing wow factor focus of successive versions of FS, and from the way MSFS2020 is being touted, that appears to be the focus once more. Although to be fair, this is a very obvious choice for marketing. We all know that eye candy screen shots are the hooks for most sims in terms of generating interest because it's hard to convey perhaps something such as an improved flight model in a picture or even a video. So we can't really blame developers and marketing departments for going along that avenue.

With all that said, we have also seen that more recent iterations of P3D have included what were originally commercially available separate products, which is of course a way around the development delay which would otherwise be in place for the makers of the sim. I in fact suspect some of this is already going on given one or two 'suspicious' delays in the development of things which were originally scheduled for release quite some time ago (I'm looking at you, Just Flight Boeing 747-200); it certainly was the case with the stillborn Flight Sim World, whereby many TPDs were right in at the start with their products in the early access version of that simulation, but then again, much was made of this in the marketing, whereas MS are more typically tight lipped in such cases. So who knows?

Edited February 20, 2020 by Chock

[RALF9636 1,960]

2 minutes ago, Chock said:

So who knows?

Correct. It's just that "we don't do things half-arsed" - attitude of the MSFS-devs that fuels my hope.

So let's wait and see - and enjoy what we have meanwhile. 

[Chock 17,769]

11 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

Correct. It's just that "we don't do things half-arsed" - attitude of the MSFS-devs that fuels my hope.

Well let's hope so. Although not doing things in a half-arsed way is not, I imagine, an appraisal most people would have espoused when Microsoft made Windows ME as I recall. So let's put our faith in the notion that this was not a hallmark of the company's attitude to getting stuff out of the door. 🤣

[Montie 124]

2 hours ago, Chock said:

Well let's hope so. Although not doing things in a half-arsed way is not, I imagine, an appraisal most people would have espoused when Microsoft made Windows ME as I recall. So let's put our faith in the notion that this was not a hallmark of the company's attitude to getting stuff out of the door. 🤣

Well that was almost 20 years ago and not made by Asobo.

[Emerson67 248]

On 1/13/2020 at 6:16 PM, CptVince said:

Hello everyone. 

I've recently posted a video on my channel which discusses this very topical question. Who should stop buying P3D-X-Plane addons and who should keep buying? The monologue proposes many arguments for the hardcore simmer who's well established in his sim to keep his purchasing power in the market. The video has sparked a lively discussion in the comment section and I believe it is a much needed discussion as long as it is conducted in a civilized way conducive to an equable argumentative climate.

I'm eager to hear what you all think!

 

Best,

Vincent

Hello Vincent,

I predict I'm going to buy more and more X-Plane add-ons, especially the ones which simulate how a real aircraft fly. I can't go into details currently, but every real pilot simmer will understand my point.

[FDEdev 955]

8 minutes ago, Emerson67 said:

I predict I'm going to buy more and more X-Plane add-ons, especially the ones which simulate how a real aircraft fly. I can't go into details currently, but every real pilot simmer will understand my point.

FYI, this is not a x-plane versus FSX/P3D/MSFS thread. I understand your point, but as a real pilot I definitely disagree.

[Emerson67 248]

5 minutes ago, FDEdev said:

FYI, this is not a x-plane versus FSX/P3D/MSFS thread. I understand your point, but as a real pilot I definitely disagree.

No problem.

[Amon1973 1,421]

4 hours ago, Chock said:

From what I've seen of the included airliners (which admittedly is not much), I suspect that they will be a step up from what has previously been included in iterations of FS, but I seriously doubt that they will be akin to the kind of things we find in the Majestic Dash 8 or the FSL A320. There is a precedent for this which we can extrapolate to some degree of course; the default included airliners in successive versions of FS over the years have, generally speaking, got a little bit more fancy over time, but in fairness, most of that has tended to be either visual or inclusive of the capabilities of the sim (i.e. getting virtual cockpits or being able to use built-in IFR ATC).

 

I wonder if MS will allow the development of their default aircraft, by freeware devs along the lines of the Zibo on Xplane.

[LHookins 3,103]

2 hours ago, FDEdev said:

FYI, this is not a x-plane versus FSX/P3D/MSFS thread. I understand your point, but as a real pilot I definitely disagree.

I didn't read his statement as being any kind of X vs Y thing, just that he was going to continue buying addons for XPlane.  As for the "simulate how real aircraft fly" I think the A2A aircraft have that pretty well covered too. 🙂  I'm not familiar with what is available for XPlane.  I'd rather not get into comparisons of flight models between various existing sims.

Hook

[LHookins 3,103]

7 hours ago, Chock said:

I seems from this thread that most people would agree that it would be silly to simply abandon your P3D, FSX or XPlane (other sims are available ™) simply because there is a shiny new one on the way, or even eventually available.

Chock gets it.

 

7 hours ago, Mengy said:

For myself I just don't like investing in sunk costs, when an investment is trending downward and will never trend upwards again I get out of it.

<snip>

But to each their own!  I'm glad many people will continue to support the current sims, that's good for the market.  It's just not what I will be doing anymore.

Flight simming isn't an "investment" the same way a stock is.  You aren't expecting to sell it for more than you paid for it.  It is, however, an "investment" in entertainment and as long as you get your money's worth it's all good.

It's not that I'm "supporting" a current sim, it's that I'm not going to quit flying or buying addons.

 

7 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

I'm not so sure that it's going take years until we will have so-called "study level" airliners in MSFS.

But regardless how long it will take, I also see now reason for me to stop enjoying what I can have now just because I might get something better in the future.

RALF gets it.  

I wouldn't be surprised if PMDG has an airliner ready for sale at MSFS release or shortly after.  All the hard base work has already been done (programming the FMC for example) and they just have to create an MSFS aircraft to put it all in.  They may be able so use their existing models with some updating.  It's not like they have to create everything from scratch.

Other developers may already be hard at work on MSFS aircraft as we speak.  We can only hope.

Hook

[Mengy 814]

16 minutes ago, LHookins said:

It's not that I'm "supporting" a current sim, it's that I'm not going to quit flying or buying addons.

I won't quit flying P3D either at the MFS release, but I do expect I will quit flying it relatively soon down the road.  Since I bought P3D I've not flown FSX at all, and every addon I bought for FSX has gone by the wayside.  Except for a few planes which still fly great in P3D like the RealAir Scout package.

New sims displace the old ones, I've done this dance many times over my life and I see the writing on the wall once more.  I still own many hundreds of dollars worth of stuff for P3D and I will keep enjoying them for now, but nope I'm not investing any more money into P3D.  I know that in the near future I won't be flying it at all, just like many older sims before it.

If someone knows they will still be flying in FSX/P3D/Xplane for many years to come then certainly keep buying addons for it, why not.  For someone like me who knows they won't continue flying in the old sims much longer, well that's where the decision goes the other direction.

It all comes down to personal preference really.

[LHookins 3,103]

5 hours ago, Mengy said:

I won't quit flying P3D either at the MFS release, but I do expect I will quit flying it relatively soon down the road.

I'm sure that at some point I'll switch over to MSFS and leave P3D behind.  That won't happen before MSFS is released though. 😄

When I reinstalled my flight sims on a new computer I didn't bother with FSX, just installed P3Dv2.5 which I already had.  I had a few aircraft that I flew a lot, and when I knew I could get versions of them for P3Dv4 I did the upgrade.  The Aerosoft BeaverX was a favorite plane and I didn't even think about P3Dv4 until I had it converted to run without the 32 bit .gau file.  Once that was done I researched my other planes and most of them I already had in P3Dv4 format and didn't even know it.

I've only booted v2.5 a couple of times since I got v4.  I haven't done any flying in it.  When MSFS is released and I'm certain it fits my requirements I probably won't ever boot P3Dv4 again.  I don't expect to see MSFS for a few months in any case and I'm still putting 7 hours a day average in P3D.  No reason not to buy new goodies for it if I expect to get sufficient use out of them.

Bandwidth will be a major issue.  To give you an example, my son's wife updated her XBox earlier this month and it ended up using 10 gig out of my 25 gig monthy allowance.  After 25 gig they limit my speed severely.  Judging by how long it took to download the screen shots from today's update we hit the limit earlier today.  It won't reset until the 4th of next month and if I wanted to buy more bandwidth it's $10 per gig.  The joys of living in the boonies and relying on satellite Internet;  the pipes are only so big.

Hook

[Amon1973 1,421]

One thing the latest MSFS video has done is that I was thinking about buying FlyTampa's St Maarten airport package, I'll hold off now I've seen the airports around that area of the Caribbean, it looks just as good, if not better..... for free.

[reecemj 146]

14 hours ago, LHookins said:

Flight simming isn't an "investment" the same way a stock is.  You aren't expecting to sell it for more than you paid for it.  It is, however, an "investment" in entertainment and as long as you get your money's worth it's all good.

+1. Entertainment for most that what it is. Do I want to fly or watch a movie?  

[mSparks 2,086]

24 minutes ago, reecemj said:

+1. Entertainment for most that what it is. Do I want to fly or watch a movie?  

obviously fly while listening to Norman Greenbaum.