4 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Ortho4XP for P3D?

I've tried this, but it downloads from, let's say, Google Earth and then compiles to scenery, if I recall correctly...?

If you combine the users from P3D, XPLANE + FSX + FS9 it comes to a roughly total of 1M users.. so when I saw the news that said "1 million users had used MSFS" all this indicated to me was, fine every flight sim user is curious and it is exploring the new simulator, not unreasonable.

The marketing, PR, etc. was very successful to bring many users to explore it.. what we don't know is, how many will continue.. as I said many times.. I see lots of users coming back to P3D.. I have no ways to know the stats for XPlane.. however I can assume pretty easily that anybody that was on FS9 / FSX will stay with MSFS.

The real stats will be next year, the real figure we need is, how many "keep using it" and how many were actually "new users". In my view, users of MSFS buy less add-on's.. and from I can read from many here.. it confirms my stats about how MSFS users purchase behaviour is.. (from talking behind the scenes with many devs)..

Having said all that, I totally understand why scenery developers see a high flux of cash, they have a current product, they can port it over faster than creating a new one, offer it for MSFS and lots of people might buy it. However I am not sure that is sustainable over long term.. the more freeware is available the less airports people will buy for MSFS.. specially when ASOBO will start including free updates provided by the community for any airport..

S.

So much to the 1 million copies, Steam stats 4900 average players the last month.

And by the way, regarding the scenery: no, streamed scenery is NOT free, it costs bandwidth which is not free. How many may have upgraded their bandwidth just for MSFS?
 

1 minute ago, simbol said:

In my view, users of MSFS buy less add-on's.. and from I can read from many here.. it confirms my stats about how MSFS users purchase behaviour is.. (from talking behind the scenes with many devs)..

That's your view, that is not confirmed by actual sales figures. In order to have a proper view of the current market, a developer should be in the following position:

- Having several products for MSFS on sale.

- Being on the MS Marketplace with more than one product

Unless both conditions are true, no developer can claim to have a proper view of what users are really buying right now.

 

6 minutes ago, simbol said:

However I am not sure that is sustainable over long term.. the more freeware is available the less airports people will buy for MSFS.. specially when ASOBO will start including free updates provided by the community for any airport..

I'm sorry, but I simply don't agree to the view that is best for developers if a sim comes out "bare", so the developers can make money because of the simulator own shortcomings. This is very shortsighted, and it only works as long that simulator doesn't have any alternatives so, it *needs* add-ons to be workable, and there's no other alternative around.

If what you are saying here will happen ( and I have no doubt it will ), with so much good freeware and possibly a way to install it more easily from the Marketplace, why in the world users should continue to buy add-ons for the simulator that doesn't look every good without them ? They will JUST move to the one with lots of freeware that is even easier to install. The only thing it will happen, is that payware scenery should start to compete better, offering more features, more optimizations, but to think freeware destroys the business is really thinking backwards: is the LACK of freeware that shows a simulator is dying! Freeware is a sign of the simulator viability, the "best" version of Flight Simulator, that is FS9 and FSX, were the ones with the most freeware too, but this hasn't stopped anyone's business from growing.

9 minutes ago, JoeFackel said:

So much to the 1 million copies, Steam stats 4900 average players the last month.

You are now confusing "simultaneous players" with sales.

SteamSpy estimate Flight Simulator to have between 200.000 and 500.000 users, and I can tell you from sales from the MS Marketplace ( we know how much copies are sold to Steam users, because we get less money for each... ), that Steam is only a part of the overall user base, but the majority bought from the MS Store. I think 1 million users is not very far from reality.

 

Quote

And by the way, regarding the scenery: no, streamed scenery is NOT free, it costs bandwidth which is not free. How many may have upgraded their bandwidth just for MSFS?

You just made my point. if this is true, it only shows MSFS user ARE prepared to spend money to improve their experience. Not even mentioning the fact that EVERY flight sim hardware from Saitek, Thrustmaster, Honeycomb, etc, it's basically all sold-out.

So much for the "casual xboxers that don't spend any money"...

Edited December 1, 20205 yr by virtuali

@virtuali Umberto, your are my favourite add-on developer and I always admire how good you are, and how much you push the boundaries of any platform to implement new stuff.

Therefore I don't wish to engage on public debates with you, I wish you all the best of success.. However please note I am not criticising MSFS or saying the sim should come bare.. I never said that.. what I am saying is, if the freeware keeps going at the rate it has been published.. the market will shift.

S.

Edited December 1, 20205 yr by simbol

2 minutes ago, simbol said:

what I am saying is, if the freeware keeps going at the rate it has been published.. the market will shift.

Sure, it will make MSFS more and more attractive. And payware developers won't have any other choice than step up their game.

It's possible that some might take a complete different route instead, and might start looking in the real professional market, which is fact what P3D was supposed to be used for in the first place.

5 minutes ago, virtuali said:

If what you are saying here will happen ( and I have no doubt it will ), with so much good freeware and possibly a way to install it more easily from the Marketplace, why in the world users should continue to buy add-ons for the simulator that doesn't look every good without them ? They will JUST move to the one with lots of freeware that is even easier to install. The only thing it will happen, is that payware scenery should start to compete better, offering more features, more optimizations, but to think freeware destroys the business is really thinking backwards: is the LACK of freeware that shows a simulator is dying! Freeware is a sign of the simulator viability, the "best" version of Flight Simulator, that is FS9 and FSX, were the ones with the most freeware too, but this hasn't stopped anyone's business from growing.

In your scenario you think that all issues will be solved and everything will be better and better.

The current situation proves the opposite.

Most players are not hardcore flightsimmers, but users who play it like they also play other games. They want to fly over nice scenery and are not interested in HF parked cars that resemble real world cars or being able to look through windows into the terminal and see peaple walking. Just flying from A to B and enjoying the scenery..,

And those users will not buy a lot of payware airports. At this moment the ones buying ( as I read it on the forums ) are (former) XP and P3D users.

If you play multiple games you are not going to spent a lot on extra payware for one game only...

So imho I think Rob and Simbol see it very realistic...

Quote

In your scenario you think that all issues will be solved and everything will be better and better.

The current situation proves the opposite.

You keep doing the same mistake, over and over. The current situation doesn't matter, at all. 

If Asobo/MS won't fix current issues with flight model or autopilot, 3rd parties will just made their custom version, exactly like they did with FSX or P3D, to overcome the shortcomings of the default flight model or default autopilots or default systems, and they might well as be freeware 3rd parties, for all we know.

And that's the worse case scenario, assuming Asobo won't do *anything* to fix that, which is a big assumption. But again, it won't matter, since if the users are there ( because of the graphic, the weather, the freeware, etc. ), 3rd parties will find creative ways to overcome any simulator shortcomings, as they always did before.

Edited December 1, 20205 yr by virtuali

15 minutes ago, virtuali said:

I think 1 million users is not very far from reality.

You will only sell addons to the frequent user, only this will invest in his MSFS. No casual MSFS player will invest money in something he only uses from time to time.

So the 1 million figure is not relevant, the count of frequent flyers is and that may be in the area of 20000 to 30000 based on the steam stats.

2 hours ago, virtuali said:

Exactly, and this is what almost everybody that hasn't switched to MSFS will likely do as well.

As I tried to explain, so many times, users have the luxury to live in the present, they can make a choice based on the current situation, and they can change it almost immediately when it changes.

For example, a new 3rd party airplane comes with a custom flight model ( maybe a turboprop, since those are STILL broken in P3D! ) and there goes down the drain all that lengthy explanation about why "MSFS it's a game".

Or a new airplane comes with a custom autopilot ( you think FS Labs or PMDG use the default P3D autopilot ? ), and there goes down the drain the useless discussions about how the A320 autopilot is buggy. The *FREEWARE* A320 mod will shortly have a custom autopilot...

While users can change their mind instantly, and switch to another simulator very quickly when something new happens, developers don't have such luxury: it takes time to learn new things, change methods, redo things from scratch so users won't accuse you of "recycle old stuff", and this might take many months or even years.

And that's why we cannot base our developing decisions basing what the users base is doing NOW (although the "user base" is already buying stuff for MSFS faster than they use to ), we need to anticipate what the market will look like in 2-3 years and how the availability of "serious" addons for MSFS will do to it.

Now, since this is still a P3D thread in the P3D forum, I want to say something positive too: if we ever got word that a future major version of the sim had a better graphic engine ( realtime AO, a better/more stable PBR, and a better way to do sloped airports ) and LM made an agreement with, let's say, Google to provide with global scenery coverage, that might change things quite a bit, because we would still have the advantage of a more powerful SDK, but with a much shorter development time for airport scenery and with more commonality with MSFS that could allow making an airport that could work with both with minimal effort.

Umberto,

Thanks for commenting/discussing. I actually agree with you and the statements you made. It could very well turn out that way, but no-one knows for sure right now. Its still early days and MS has quite a bit of dev work to do.

I guess the point I was trying to make is some people may not switch even in a year from now. We know that there are simmers out there today for various reasons that also continue to use FSX and FS2004 and other older sim platforms.

 

I can certainly understand that developers would want to focus on developing for the new sim platform given the new market opportunity, but do you risk to leave behind all those that are on the current platform - existing users that previously supported your business. The inference from Matthias K is he believes the P3D is dead platform and we understand that position given his unique business  situation and why he would believe that.

I personally still believe there will continue to be a market for P3D, given we are in generation 5 of the platform and its already well established with many 3rd party developer add-on products plus LM has a more strategic business plan it still wants to execute on.

I think a number of sim platforms will still be viable in a year or so. The question for me is, will developers find it tougher to develop and support multiple sim platforms. For some devs it may be too much.

 

In summary, simmers have a large choice today and its getting bigger, which is a good thing and the various sim platforms do cater to differing user needs. Only time will tell how the market will unfold.

For me P3D is still the way forward today based on its current capabilities, but I dont rule anything new out either. I will continue to watch the MSFS space with interest.

 

@ Everyone: BTW: Did I detect some enhancements to default ATC in P3Dv5.1? I saw at the weekend some new menu options appear that I had not seen before?

 

 

2 minutes ago, JoeFackel said:

You will only sell addons to the frequent user, only this will invest in his MSFS. No casual MSFS player will invest money in something he only uses from time to time.

So the 1 million figure is not relevant, the count of frequent flyers is and that may be in the area of 20000 to 30000 based on the steam stats.

Steam isn't even the only platform on PC the sim is available from.

2 minutes ago, JoeFackel said:

You will only sell addons to the frequent user, only this will invest in his MSFS. No casual MSFS player will invest money in something he only uses from time to time.

Yet, for some strange reason, they are prepared to invest in bandwidth upgrades ( your own words ) and hardware. This means they care about the sim, the "casual user not buying add-ons" is start to become an urban legend now.

They DO buy add-ons, if they are good and the price is right.

1 minute ago, Scottoest said:

Steam isn't even the only platform on PC the sim is available from.

Thats why i didn't write 4800 but mutliplied it VERY generously as you can read. yourself. 

3 minutes ago, virtuali said:

Yet, for some strange reason, they are prepared to invest in bandwidth upgrades ( your own words ) and hardware. This means they care about the sim, the "casual user not buying add-ons" is start to become an urban legend now.

They DO buy add-ons, if they are good and the price is right.

Yes, the rought estimated frequent 20000 users. Not the one-million-"sales"-figure. And bandwidth and hardware can be uses for other things also, and MSFS addon not.

That one million sales figure is completely irrelevant regarding addon sales.