Why scenery developers focus on MSFS instead of P3D?

[B777ER 2,483]

11 minutes ago, virtuali said:

KORD has been out since 10 days, and sales on MSFS has already massively surpassed the first 10 days of sales in P3D, with a trend that will likely result in the MSFS version outselling what the P3D version sold in one year, buy the end September.

Very briefly:

- It will take only 20 days of sales in MSFS to reach 12 months of sales in P3D.

- The Xbox version is not even out yet.

- We have to "compete" with an handcrafted version included in the Premium versions of the sim.

- We don't have all the greatest features we have in the P3D version ( Docking systems, GSX, Active panels ), so the MSFS version is technically less featured.

- As you suggest, those sales can only get better when MSFS will have better quality airliners eventually-

- Most of the sales came from the MS Marketplace, where's there's no upgrade price, so we can assume most users were new, while existing users bought the discounted upgrade from our site or Simmarket.

You do the math...

And this right here is why development for P3D is going to pretty much go away. Like it or not, facts don't lie. 

[Fludo 22]

Hello,

I also really don't get the direction many developers are taking. My opinion is that if sales for P3D have dropped is most probably because they have been focusing on converting existing airports to MSFS.

It would be nice to ask Flytampa how their KPCH sales have been, or Fslabs with their latest releases or PMDG or Taxi2gate with VVHH. These are some developers who have released excellent products in the recent months for P3D and I bet their sales have been great.

I have personally tried to like MSFS twice but I had to quit, for instance yesterday I was trying the Cessna 172 and the displays on it were really stuttery I couldn't even read the airspeed, that was with clear skies, no AI and Medium settings (9700k and 1080ti for PC). I really don't know how are we going to be able to fly complex aircraft in the sim's current state.

I have spent a lot of money in P3D and I am very satisfied with how it looks and works as of today, I really wish quality add-ons kept coming to the platform and I'm sure they would have great sales.

I am really looking forward to buy: FB NZAA, FB LFBO, FT EHAM V2, FT LOWW V2, MK Studios LIRF, Sevilla airport which in theory is being developed, PMDG 777-200ER expansion, FSlabs winglets expansion, TFDi MD-11, Taxi2gate updates for EDDM and LFPG,...

I'm sure many fellow simmers are also eagerly waiting for those and many others to be released.

So to any developer who may be reading this; Please don't forget P3D :)

[HiFlyer 9,343]

7 minutes ago, B777ER said:

And this right here is why development for P3D is going to pretty much go away. Like it or not, facts don't lie. 

Over at Aerosoft, they already mentioned that their P3D sales numbers have pretty much flatlined. (their word)

https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/155798-twin-compatibility/&do=findComment&comment=996078

[Fludo 22]

26 minutes ago, virtuali said:

 

I'm afraid you are going to lose the bet.

KORD has been out since 10 days, and sales on MSFS has already massively surpassed the first 10 days of sales in P3D, with a trend that will likely result in the MSFS version outselling what the P3D version sold in one year, buy the end September.

Very briefly:

- It will take only 20 days of sales in MSFS to reach 12 months of sales in P3D.

You do the math...

Umberto I think your comparison is not fair as the price for KORD V2 when released was 40€ on Simmarket (I think it was 41€), the price for the released version in MSFS is half that.

Also, there are not many other options to choose form right now, so if there's 100.000 people willing to buy some add-on and there's only 25 of them your chances of selling it are much higher than with a mature market like the one for P3D Add-ons.

Not referring to the quality of the airport which I know is excellent.

[G-RFRY 1,705]

1 hour ago, virtuali said:

What you are seeing, is likely the visual disconnection between the sim, which has a 100% PBR graphic engine, and ground polygons made with Projected Meshes ( which is a feature that allows for a faster conversion of ground lines of existing sceneries ), which didn't supported PBR before the current patch. So, the non-PBR ground polygons looked a bit of of place compared with the rest of the sim. This is history now, since starting from the current patch, Projected Mesh support PBR but, of course, in order to see the effect, the scenery must be updated. I cannot speak about other sceneries, but our Chicago O'Hare was converted to support full PBR on ground the day after the patch was released, and now it looks perfectly integrated with the rest of the scenery, because the 3d modeling was already 100% PBR, even in P3D4, that's why it converted so well in MSFS.

 

It's fairly fast ( if you know what you are doing ) and cost efficient, and the scenery will look good and even better if it was born as a full PBR scenery.

It's also fairly fast ( if you know what you are doing ) and cost efficient, and the scenery will look plain or even bad, if the scenery wasn't designed for PBR.

 

To do a QUALITY airport, it takes about a year, possibly more. Some quality airliners will surely be out by that date, and the airports won't go anywhere. It would be a mistake to "wait" for those, unless we could magically conjure an airport of of thin air.

And of course, you are assuming scenery developers are "deciding" things and try to convince you to do something. It's the OTHER way around. USERS drive developer's choice, and users means only one thing: SALES.

If your stance of not buying airports for MSFS because there are no airliners, translated into buying MORE airports for P3D in the meantime, and the majority of users shared this attitude, we would should have seen an INCREASE of sales of P3D-only products. Or, at least, not a drop.

What do you think it happened, instead ?

That's the reply to your answers. Users buy ( or not ). Sales drives development choices. Users are always right. Developers only follow.

So you will be quiet happy to be left with just one sim to cater for if the others fold.

[virtuali 4,419]

2 minutes ago, B777ER said:

And this right here is why development for P3D is going to pretty much go away. Like it or not, facts don't lie. 

We have at least a product that will continue to support and will continue to be improved on P3D, and that's GSX. In fact, the very existence of MSFS will result in improvements for the P3D version as well, because of the way GSX is done:

- GSX itself, it's written entirely in Python, using a custom interpreter we wrote ( the Couatl Scripting Engine ) that handles all the logic of the program. The Couatl engine handles the communication with the sim using Simconnect and, until today, it was an FSX Simconnect client, which connected with P3D using Simconnect backward compatibility. GSX doesn't really care if it's running in FSX, P3D 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or even MSFS. It's only executing Python code, and when it calls Simconnect, it's Couatl that does it. 

- The only thing "native" to P3D is our Addon Manager .DLL, which does only the things that cannot be done by in-process .DLL, that is DirectX 11 rendering in P3D4.

- MSFS Simconnect is still not completed, meaning many documented functions are not working, but we think they will be soon enough. Once they do, porting GSX to MSFS, with ALL its features, should be reasonably quick, since the biggest workload that was converting all objects to PBR, was already done for P3D4 last year.

- Since MSFS Simconnect is 64 bit only, while we were waiting for Asobo to fix the missing features we need to do something like GSX ( menus, creation of objects, etc. ), we worked to convert the Couatl engine to 64 bit, and this will result in an improvement for P3D as well, since instead of a single FSX version, we'll have two dedicated 64 versions: one *native* for P3D4/5 which uses the 64 bit Simconnect for P3D, and one *native* for MSFS, which uses the 64 bit Simconnect for MSFS.

- Since GSX itself it's pure Python code, it won't make any difference to it, if it will run under P3D or MSFS, so we can continue to work on the SAME codebase, and it will automatically work on both, meaning any improvement we'll have to the features, the logic and even the models ( A model it's a model and PBR is PBR ), won't require any specific extra effort to continue offering updates to both simulators.

Case in point, we just released the mobile GPU vehicle for GSX now ( and FS Labs is working to integrate it with their Airbus ), but we haven't considered it a wasted effort, since there's nothing in it that would prevent to work in any simulator.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

47 minutes ago, Skywolf said:

Also the graphics in MSFS is just mind blowing compared to old school p3d .

Simulation is surely not all about eye candy. 

MSFS "Mindblowing"? Maybe, if you mean what happens to your mind after it contacts the inside of your skull when your plane hits the tower they put in the middle of the runway at 100 knots...

I have both sims, I think it's 3 weeks now since I've fired up MSFS. In it's present state, it's cute but P3D v5 if a lot better for simming airline ops. Right now, I am parked on the ramp at YMHB:

I've got some real traffic landing and taking off, thanks to AIG. Every system in my Maddog works, I'm not having to suspend disbelief in a systems-lite aircraft. I have a decent airport, thanks to Orbx AU2. I have all of Tasmania covered with ortho, so after about 3000 feet it is using the same tech for scenery display as MSFS (overlay, photogrametry or otherwise, doesn't matter much after takeoff) - and MSFS actually looks far WORSE at 20,000-34,000 feet compared to P3D ortho with Truesky, as it's trying to stream a massive area.

The suggestion that MSFS is "the future of flight simulation" as an absolute statement is rubbish. It is PART of the future of flight simulation, along with P3D and X-plane.

I am still buying addons for P3D. I may buy some more for MSFS - bought the first few Orbx airports that came out - but I've actually halted that for now as I see that sim just as a game to play with for occasional fun, not something that I care enough about to spend 1000's of dollars getting right.

So addon developers - keep developing for P3D. I believe that if you build something of quality, there are plenty of us that will still support you.

[virtuali 4,419]

11 minutes ago, Fludo said:

My opinion is that if sales for P3D have dropped is most probably because they have been focusing on converting existing airports to MSFS

No, they dropped because users stopped buying products ( especially airport sceneries, GSX sales for us has always been good ) for P3D the DAY Microsoft announced the new sim.

[chapstick 2,757]

Love how people are arguing with a developer who literally has the numbers and analytics to show where the market is at right now. 

[Chock 17,769]

27 minutes ago, virtuali said:

The A380 manual ( and the A350 is very similar ), is about 7000 pages long.

I AM reading it now, because you never know what it might be used for ( sometimes we dabble the idea to do an airplane ), so we can talk again in a couple of years, when I'll finish it, so I might have a better idea how to code it...perhaps the new Webassembly system and the SDK will be better by then.

Makes the pilot notes for the MiG-29 (which I recently read) seem quite brief, at a mere 496 pages. 🤣

[chapstick 2,757]

4 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

Simulation is surely not all about eye candy. 

MSFS "Mindblowing"? Maybe, if you mean what happens to your mind after it contacts the inside of your skull when your plane hits the tower they put in the middle of the runway at 100 knots...

 

That's a data issue, not a graphical one. 

 

[HiFlyer 9,343]

1 minute ago, Chapstick said:

Love how people are arguing with a developer who literally has the numbers and analytics to show where the market is at right now. 

This happens when one doesn't like the outcome when there's tension between what one wants to be true, and what actually is true.

[HiFlyer 9,343]

3 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

That's a data issue, not a graphical one. 

And it invites a useless tit-for-tat revealing similar flaws in other sims.

[Ident 198]

Umberto, not meaning to hijack the thread but I really hope that FSDT looks at growing GSX to include GA pilots since MSFS really has opened the door to VFR flying.  Stretched Golf Carts instead of buses and vans for Pax, small hand tugs like we see in MSFS instead of big tractor types (or the ability to turn off tugs at GA parking spots), hand push carts for luggage instead of conveyor belts and tugs, having a FBO operator as the service provider instead of an airline are just some examples. Things like that to which I'd happily pay for as an expansion version.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

13 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

Love how people are arguing with a developer who literally has the numbers and analytics to show where the market is at right now. 

We know that you don't like P3D, chap, though why you come here and continue to post negative things about the sim I'll never understand. Do you like raining on people's parades in normal life as well, or is this just an Avsim thing??

It's up to FSDT which platform they develop for. They are just one developer in a very large pool. They also have a fairly mature catalogue - many simmers already own most of their airports - plus I'm not the only one who prefers not to have Couatl running on my P3D v5 install.

I have increased my P3D addon buying since the announcement of MSFS in order to support the people who support my sim. A quick check of Simmarket shows that in the past year I have acquired 72 addons (!) there, a number that surprises me but I'm happy to have done my bit! 

As I said, keep developing chaps, and I'll keep on purchasing, and there's plenty more like me out there.

Edited September 20, 2020 by OzWhitey