3 months and do we have a sales number?

[abrams_tank 7,531]

22 minutes ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

It might make sense to  you and me and probably to the developers but ALL game stores including Apple, Google and Steam take a 30% cut. Epic is the only exception.  It is basically an industry wide standard cut that has triggered a lot of  antitrust legal action lately.

I have just looked and can see nothing anywhere about MS reducing their standard Xbox 30% cut on game sales just for MSFS products. Everything says Xbox games stores are 30% .

So how may people buy their games outside of the XBox Store?  I don't own an XBox.  But for IPhones and IPads, almost all the users that haven't jail broken their device get their apps from the Apple Store. So the Apples Store is the de facto marketplace to get your apps.  People don't really get their apps for IPhones and IPad outside the Apple Store (unless they have jailbroken their device).  This is why Apple can charge a 70/30 split.

For MSFS, people can buy the 3rd party add ons outside the MSFS marketplace and they regularly do so.  It's really stupid of Microsoft to make it a 70/30 split because then developers wills stop listing in the MSFS marketplace, which means Microsoft makes nothing.

BTW, 3rd party add ons are not games.  They are 3rd party add ons.  Games are standalone software that can run by itself.  3rd party add ons cannot run by themselves without the game.  So I don't think you should assume the business model for XBox games is the same as 3rd party add ons - the ecosystem is entirely different, as I pointed out that it's really easy to get the 3rd party add on from a the 3rd party developer's website.

(if you study economics, the Apple Store is much closer to a monopoly than the MSFS marketplace, for the reason I stated, so monopolies can charge a higher price)

Edited November 17, 2020 by abrams_tank

[dolbinau 72]

Maybe one potential exit strategy if things weren't as rewarding for Microsoft as anticipated is they could offer a subscription service with hopefully enough traction from core/long-term MSFS 2020 simmers that it would pay for ongoing maintenance and access to the cloud bing data, and occassional patches. Of course, it's early to speculate on any of these points but I think it's very naieve for anyone here to suggest that sales do not matter at all. 

[abrams_tank 7,531]

6 minutes ago, dolbinau said:

Maybe one potential exit strategy if things weren't as rewarding for Microsoft as anticipated is they could offer a subscription service with hopefully enough traction from core/long-term MSFS 2020 simmers that it would pay for ongoing maintenance and access to the cloud bing data, and occassional patches. Of course, it's early to speculate on any of these points but I think it's very naieve for anyone here to suggest that sales do not matter at all. 

I lost the the link, but it was either the P3D or XPlane forums where there was a thread about 9 months ago on users of P3D or XPlane that were concerned that 3rd parties would stop developing for P3D/XPlane and that thread drummed up a lot of discussion.  In that thread, somebody had mentioned there was commercial interest in MSFS and that some companies had approached Microsoft for commercial use of MSFS.  It would be interesting to see if Microsoft is thinking about the commercial market with MSFS. I don't know what agreement was exactly written between Microsoft and Lockheed over FSX, but if Microsoft is allowed to pursue the commercial market with MSFS, that's another nice source of revenue for Microsoft.

Edited November 17, 2020 by abrams_tank

[pmb 5,138]

2 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

It might make sense to  you and me and probably to the developers but ALL game stores including Apple, Google and Steam take a 30% cut. Epic is the only exception.  It is basically an industry wide standard cut that has triggered a lot of  antitrust legal action lately.

From what I heared, Simmarket takes a 30% share as well. Alternatively, addon providers can run their own shops as FSDT, FB, FSDG, and others (albeit most of them not exclusively) do. But even running these shops is not free and binds resources and Shareit & Co take a cut for payment as well. I think these several options more or less balance - there just is no free lunch.

In my mind, one potential obstacle are the delays in adding products to the MSFS Store. Quite a number of users buy items quickly after release (at least I do, with reliable makers). So MS misses this peak and only catches the long-term rest.

Kind regards, Michael

[Noel 4,572]

14 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Current sales will have no effect on whether the servers are still supported in the future.

This comment, like many you make, have an authoritative quality to them--are you in insider, or is this just how you present your opinions?  What will determine whether servers are supported in the future? 

[RobJC 2,073]

MSFS is a very strategic product for MS. First, they want it to be a flagship product for xbox. They also want to use it to showcase Bing data and AI. To get this many developers on board and spend this much time on it, I think we can be pretty certain that this product will be around a very long time. It is very high priority now, and would be a massive black eye to MS if they cancelled it anytime soon. 

[Manny 1,293]

MS can always charge us monthly for using their cloud. 

[Noel 4,572]

36 minutes ago, Manny said:

MS can always charge us monthly for using their cloud. 

Shhhh Manny!

[Wobbie 938]

3 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

I lost the the link, but it was either the P3D or XPlane forums where there was a thread about 9 months ago on users of P3D or XPlane that were concerned that 3rd parties would stop developing for P3D/XPlane and that thread drummed up a lot of discussion.  In that thread, somebody had mentioned there was commercial interest in MSFS and that some companies had approached Microsoft for commercial use of MSFS.  It would be interesting to see if Microsoft is thinking about the commercial market with MSFS. I don't know what agreement was exactly written between Microsoft and Lockheed over FSX, but if Microsoft is allowed to pursue the commercial market with MSFS, that's another nice source of revenue for Microsoft.

It is highly improbable that Microsoft, at this stage, will go commercial with MSFS.

In the good old days, FSX was developed by ACES Gaming Studios as an entertainment product, & ACES also developed a commercial, not for entertainment product called ESP, & the intellectual content od ESP was licensed to LM do be developed into P3D, a not for entertainment product, and obviously ,a choice for developers if they want to develop for that platform.

Microsoft has, contracted Asobo Gaming Studios o develop MSFS as an entertainment product, & it's EULA states that. So the chances of developing MSFS as a commercial product is very minimal, especially based on it's current status as entertainment. 

As we know, P3d has a professional version, with a lot more functionality than it's more 'public' version, * MSFS is so from that functionality.

Hope this explains.

Also, Microsoft, I'm sure, is not looking or needs a nice source of revenue. They, if you are a shareholder, are doing OK.. 

[Manny 1,293]

5 minutes ago, Noel said:

Shhhh Manny!

😁

[marsman2020 1,310]

5 hours ago, Nedo68 said:

I doubt this, i never spend 1cent in the marketplace and dont plan in the near future, for me the Sim is allready out of this world, so beautiful, so many places to visit, i maybe install some freeware stuff if needed, but not right now.

And i hope the Sim will live on for at least the next 10 years 😁

Regardless of what MS says, unless the game is profitable I doubt they will continue to pay for a team of of developers, petabytes of cloud storage and bandwidth, and multiple external data sources that they have to pay to license.

Everything is "critical to the company" until the instant it's not.  That's how these tech companies operate.  I bet they spent millions on the Kinect for XBox, and they canned it as soon as it wasn't profitable.  

[abrams_tank 7,531]

32 minutes ago, Wobbie said:

It is highly improbable that Microsoft, at this stage, will go commercial with MSFS.

In the good old days, FSX was developed by ACES Gaming Studios as an entertainment product, & ACES also developed a commercial, not for entertainment product called ESP, & the intellectual content od ESP was licensed to LM do be developed into P3D, a not for entertainment product, and obviously ,a choice for developers if they want to develop for that platform.

Microsoft has, contracted Asobo Gaming Studios o develop MSFS as an entertainment product, & it's EULA states that. So the chances of developing MSFS as a commercial product is very minimal, especially based on it's current status as entertainment. 

As we know, P3d has a professional version, with a lot more functionality than it's more 'public' version, * MSFS is so from that functionality.

Hope this explains.

Also, Microsoft, I'm sure, is not looking or needs a nice source of revenue. They, if you are a shareholder, are doing OK.. 

Out of curiosity, what is the difference in functionality between a commercial version and the version we have now? So let's fast forward time by 2 years.  Assume in 2 years time, the SDK for MSFS is sophisticated enough for 3rd parties to create "study level" airliners. Also assume the weather and other physics have become more polished in 2 years time in MSFS.

So why wouldn't MSFS make a good commercial product?  I would think if MSFS becomes sophisticated enough, even some of the professional grade $1 million USD simulators would consider using MSFS as the software for their simulators.

I'm not in the commercial simulator market, so I am hypothesizing and I would like to learn more.  But from a software point of view, I would think MSFS provides a nice base software for the commercial market.  I would think it just needs to be tweaked and refined for commercial purposes (and of course the community will push Asobo to make MSFS more and more realistic over time).

 

Edited November 17, 2020 by abrams_tank

[Noel 4,572]

There is no question in my mind MSFS has serious staying power.   I believe this franchise represents the longest running entertainment software (except for Prepar3D of course ) in existance--and just fathom how wretched the many releases were, compared to the absolute wonder that MSFS is already.  Now that the early demands and whining has diminished considerably and people are really recognizing what an gem it already is it will continue to develop positive momentum in the market.  If the Xbox release is decent it may jettison forward in a very big way.

[marsman2020 1,310]

6 minutes ago, Noel said:

There is no question in my mind MSFS has serious staying power.   I believe this franchise represents the longest running entertainment software (except for Prepar3D of course ) in existance--and just fathom how wretched the many releases were, compared to the absolute wonder that MSFS is already.

It was literally dead from 2006 until 2016-ish (assuming that's approximately when the the tech demos that became MSFS started).  In fact I'd consider what happened with MS Flight to be worse than dead, where they came out with a new thing with my hype and fanfare about all the things it would do and then killed it again. 

Everyone should get out and enjoy this things and buy as much stuff from the Marketplace as you can afford, but I think it's really naive to think that it isn't subject to being killed again at any time if MS decides it's not in the interest of their business to continue it.  And the consequences of such a decision would have a potentially much larger impact on our future enjoyment of the software given that a majority of the content streams down from the cloud.

[Wobbie 938]

3 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Out of curiosity, what is the difference in functionality between a commercial version and the version we have now? So let's fast forward time by 2 years.  Assume in 2 years time, the SDK for MSFS is sophisticated enough for 3rd parties to create "study level" airliners. Also assume the weather and other physics have become more polished in 2 years time in MSFS.

So why wouldn't MSFS make a good commercial product?  I would think if MSFS becomes sophisticated enough, even some of the professional grade $1 million USD simulators would consider using MSFS as the software for their simulators.

I'm not in the commercial simulator market, so I am hypothesizing and I would like to learn more.  But from a software point of view, I would think MSFS provides a nice base software for the commercial market.  I would think it just needs to be tweaked and refined for commercial purposes (and of course the community will push Asobo to make MSFS more and more realistic over time).

 

The main difference, apart from license agreements with commercial equipment manufacturers, is functionality, as seen when comparing the professional version with the entertainment version. Lets call the Complex aircraft, instead of 'study level'.. makes more sense,,actually. 

Well, as far as the big professional simulator manufacturers go, they develop their own dedicated sims, depending on what particular aircraft they need a sim for. Those are far more sophisticated than any other mass market simulator. 

Lets face it... take away the scenery, MSFS is really not much better than any other sim. So, maybe for a professional commercial sim manufacturer, they could, in future, be able to license Bing Azure cloud for their sims. Then, pro sims are procedural based sims,, have a look at the Frasca manufacturer & their offering. It's not the realism that the pro guys want, they have it already, it's the immersion. A story I often tell, is watching real pilots fly the sims that we've built up at our virtual flying club, where the pilots 'bump' themselves in their seats, anticipating touchdown, & we fly IFR & VFR, such is the immersion. AND thats in FS2004!!!