MSFS = Loss Leader?

[Colemanuk82 11]

13 hours ago, nickhod said:

Well, let's do some quick maths.

Asobo has, say, 100 development staff on MSFS, at an average of €45k* and has been working on this for 4 years.

= €18 million

Ignoring MS Game Pass, MSFS might cost €60. 

18,000,000 / 60 = 300k copies to break even.

FSX Steam edition sold a reported 600k copies, so 300k looks pretty achievable.

Of course if we factor in Game pass subscriptions, residual percentage cut from sales of DLC, and licensing of the underlying technology, it looks a pretty attractive business for a game studio to be in.

* Before someone says "but developers earn $120k+". Yes, they do in California, not in Bordeaux.

I'm going to buy an xbox over PlayStation this generation because of this game. YES I have a pc too. So that's another angle to look at it as well. Plus they're going to sell a lot more to casual gamers as its going to be on a console and possibly in console bundles. It has massive potential to be a cash cow with all the dlc

Edited May 25, 2020 by Colemanuk82

[mp15 138]

35 minutes ago, Wobbie said:

50k players in the 1st year? Mmmm, Xbox has in excess of 65 million monthly users? so, your annual 50k sales equates to 4200 sales of MSFS per month?

Back to the drawing board, or calculator, I suggest.

Wobbie, well consider that this Is a Flight simulator, not a First Person shooter game, not everyone knows how to fly an aircraft regardless of the in game fly school.

A regular person not interested in simmering can already fly in Google Maps with VR, what impact Will give the new MFS to these ? and you can check out the numbers of users following this forum, reddit, facebook and that give you and idea of the numbers already.

50 k users first year then 30k new users yearly, Xbox + PC

Edited May 25, 2020 by mp15

[Colemanuk82 11]

21 minutes ago, mp15 said:

Wobbie, well consider that this Is a Flight simulator, not a First Person shooter game, not everyone knows how to fly an aircraft regardless of the in game fly school.

A regular person not interested in simmering can already fly in Google Maps with VR, what impact Will give the new MFS to these ? and you can check out the numbers of users following this forum, reddit, facebook and that give you and idea of the numbers already.

50 k users first year then 4200 new users monthly, Xbox + PC

Nearly none of the people I know had no idea this game was even in development. When I've shown them videos and pictures they've literally been blown away and want to buy it. I think when the new xbox comes out and its in the xbox store there will be massive appeal just for the eyecandy alone. I've been guilty of buying games for graphics

Edited May 25, 2020 by Colemanuk82

[Wobbie 938]

This forum, reddit & Facebook most certainly do not consist of the whole simming world. There will be others that will be buying MSFS, apart from Avsimmers, Reddit & Facebook members. I'm sure you are aware that Avsim is not the only flight sim site out there & that there are many other sim forums, apart from Avsim, Also, I'm sure you are aware that the sim awareness has become quite global, even on non gaming sites. So, I'm going more along the lines of Murmur's estimate. but 50k for the 1st year? 

I can give you links of some of the many other sim sites, if you are not aware of others.

[mp15 138]

Of course the game has potencial to double those numbers, but for that, they Need a very different marketing strategy, if i was in charge, i would start by releasing gameplay video on a daily bases, naturally lifting the NDA and Killing ugly leaks, and i would make entire episodes of the Flight School in game, and how Is the game Is made, and i would do other strategies too.

[Colemanuk82 11]

5 minutes ago, mp15 said:

Of course the game has potencial to double those numbers, but for that, they Need a very different marketing strategy, if i was in charge, i would start by releasing gameplay video on a daily bases, naturally lifting the NDA and Killing ugly leaks, and i would make entire episodes of the Flight School in game, and how Is the game Is made, and i would do other strategies too.

What's the point until you can buy it? I'm sure when we see xbox ads on TV for Christmas for the new console it's going to be on it. That Im sure is bound to happen 

Edited May 25, 2020 by Colemanuk82

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

Keep in mind that the game will premiere on the Xbox Game Pass as well, and one of the reasons its development was greenlit was in order to be a showcase for the service. I don't think the amount of copies sold is going to matter much in here, perhaps only the add-on sales in the official marketplace.

[shawty1984 106]

31 minutes ago, Colemanuk82 said:

I'm going to buy an xbox over PlayStation this generation because of this game. YES I have a pc too. So that's another angle to look at it as well. Plus they're going to sell a lot more to casual gamers as its going to be on a console and possibly in console bundles. It has massive potential to be a cash cow with all the dlc

No it doesn't and this won't be in bundles. Its a niche market.

[mp15 138]

17 minutes ago, Colemanuk82 said:

 When I've shown them videos and pictures they've literally been blown away and want to buy it. I've been guilty of buying games for graphics alone 

One thing Is to say "i would buy It on release" " "i would attend your birthday party" and something very different Is using the credit card, or attend your birthday party if i dont have strings attach with you.

MFS has beautiful visuals of all the Planet, true, and It Is much more nice than other flight Sims too, but Is not that far away from other modern video games and consider Unreal engine 5 Will release soon with the option for making entire planets and streaming too.

50,000 users first year, then in addition 30k annualy. That's my bet.

It Will probably cost around $70 maybe year renewal.

Edited May 25, 2020 by mp15

[Colemanuk82 11]

I'm going to have to politely disagree with you guys and say I think this game will sell like cold beer on a hot day on xbox. Time will tell 

[shawty1984 106]

1 hour ago, Colemanuk82 said:

I'm going to have to politely disagree with you guys and say I think this game will sell like cold beer on a hot day on xbox. Time will tell 

The majority of people on Xbox will not buy it. Flight simulation is a niche market. People buy Halo, GTA, Fifa, COD and games like that. They are big sellers. The likes of Halo and Forza for the Xbox and The Last of Us and Uncharted for the PS are system sellers. Those who already own gamepass on the Xbox might download it, fly over their house, go visit the place they go on holiday, crash into a few buildings and then delete it. But those people are of no value to flight simulator, they already had gamepass anyway. 

A few extra copies will be sold with it going to Xbox. But it's certainly not a system seller.

[Wobbie 938]

So, if 1% of the monthly Xbox members buy it, that's about 700,000! So, at the $60 that's been thumb-sucked, we got $42million.. vs the $3m that mp15 suggests.

And that's over a year! 

 

[Shack95 2,658]

I think there’s a big potential in Game Pass. Many owners of Game Pass will try it, some will stay. Even if that‘s only a small percentage, it‘ll make a difference. They now have around 10 million subscribers. Should this model turn out to be the future of gaming, like Netflix did for TV, imagine how many subscribers there‘ll be in a few years. 

[mp15 138]

1 hour ago, Wobbie said:

So, if 1% of the monthly Xbox members buy it, that's about 700,000! So, at the $60 that's been thumb-sucked, we got $42million.. vs the $3m that mp15 suggests.

And that's over a year! 

 

I've said 300,000 copies sold in a time range of ten years at nearly $70 and that Is $21 million in Sales and $10 million at the investment.

Again 300,000 copies could turn out to be 500,000 copies sold if they invest In the in-game Flight School and releasing gameplay video already.

Even if Xbox hold 90 million users a month It doesnt mean It Is additive, It means that 90 million gamers are using the console now a days but they mostly buy the game pass and silly games for $10.

In regards of a fine Flight simulator, for what i guess, the price at $70 annually, as i said above:

50k Sales in 2021

Between 10k and 30k Sales annually from 2022 until 2030.

[mp15 138]

There Is no way that the 1% of Xbox gamers will buy this game during the first year, most of Xbox gamers are children and they have no idea how to fly a plane and the graphics just look like any other modern game. They like silly and simple games for $10 and mostly First Person shooters. Apart from this they Just play other silly games and mostly freebies on their tablets.

 

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by mp15