MSFS Crosses Two Million+ Players

[Ricardo41 5,954]

44 minutes ago, Janov said:

 

MSFS lacks the gameplay depth to hold interest for long -

Yeah, no "gameplay depth" at all. 

[Scottoest 1,561]

22 minutes ago, Waldo Pepper said:

And all of that could change one day if Austin Meyers ever picks up a phone,  and talks to the right person at Google.    

No it wouldn't.  XP doesn't have the manpower and resources to support something like that, and Google aren't known for licencing out their satellite data like that.  Even for MSFS, the Bing integration is only possible because they also own Azure, and because they've got a team of people at Bing and Azure working directly with Asobo to make sure the whole pipeline works and can be updated regularly.

There aren't nearly enough X-Plane users for such an undertaking to make any sense for LR (or Google for that matter), and that generously assumes Google would even be receptive in the first place.

The streaming data in MSFS is a unique situation where Microsoft owned the sim, the geographic data, and the cloud provider - AND they had a specific incentive to show off Azure, AND they happened to have a gaming subscription tied-in that could subsidize that cost.

I haven't even gotten into the substantial effort it would probably take LR to fundamentally recode XP to support streamed in terrain data, satellite imagery, weather etc. at all - a product that was never designed for any of those things.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Scottoest

[cwburnett 1,809]

Purely as a reference point....we see 1k-2k unique visitors to our Working Title github site per day... and have almost 100k downloads. I suspect we reach a relatively small audience compared to the total sim... I wouldn't think more than 10% of regular users are even aware of our stuff...

[sanh 823]

1 hour ago, FAZZ3 said:

Can you all grannies stop arguing over the player count numbers and get excited about the incoming real time snow feature?

At last a sensible comment. What does real time snow mean? We have that already dont we? When its showing outside it snows in the sim too when using real weather.

[Will Fly For Cheese 1,710]

Wow, 2 Million stuttering computers all Online at the same time.

I hope that doesn't cause some weird upset in the internet of things space time continuum thing. . .

[Scottoest 1,561]

1 minute ago, sanh said:

At last a sensible comment. What does real time snow mean? We have that already dont we? When its showing outside it snows in the sim too when using real weather.

Maybe they mean real-time accumulation?

[Amon1973 1,421]

19 minutes ago, Waldo Pepper said:

And all of that could change one day if Austin Meyers ever picks up a phone,  and talks to the right person at Google.    

If only it was that simple.

[Azapata87 173]

3 minutes ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

Wow, 2 Million stuttering computers all Online at the same time.

I hope that doesn't cause some weird upset in the internet of things space time continuum thing. . .

Runs fine on many computers including mine and no I’m not running a gtx 3090 water cooled super computer. 
 

Might be a problem on your end.

[sanh 823]

1 hour ago, Janov said:

MSFS lacks the gameplay depth to hold interest for long -

Nope. For a mass market product regular updates are required to maintain interest. X-Plane for example has minimal updates relatively speaking so becomes boring more quickly unless you keep opening the wallet for addons.

I am still flying cross country in the a320 FlyByWire freeware addon across the massively improved US World Update released recently. We have real time snow coming next week so I will pencil in some flights to the frozen North - that will be fun - and then back to the UK in January with the new World Update followed by another major sim update in Feb where I think they have improved the default ATC.

For the simmer who wants to push buttons and stare at gauges through the flight or simulate a pressure leak the above is not going to cut it for them. P3D or X-Plane are the places to go for that right now but like I said I am talking about mass market simmers above.

Edited December 17, 2020 by sanh

[Janov 2,383]

9 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

Purely as a reference point....we see 1k-2k unique visitors to our Working Title github site per day

I follow your (and other mods) progress closely and you guys are doing amazing things.

As I wrote (Ricardo41, take notice) "lacks" depth - not "will always lack depth". Present, not future 😉

If aircraft can reach the same system fidelity as in others (not only X-Plane) flightsimulators, my prognosis on MSFS´s success will change significantly.

I have yet to reach a conclusion about the aerodynamics - with assessment ranging wildly, even from real-world pilots and flight dynamics experts.

[Janov 2,383]

6 minutes ago, sanh said:

X-Plane for example has minimal updates relatively speaking so becomes boring more quickly unless you keep opening the wallet for addons.

Well, in my real job I usually fly the same plane with no upgrades for 6 - 10 years...and it doesn´t become boring at all. Not purchasing any addons, either - although once in a while I get to fly to a new destination, if that counts 🙂

But I agree with the rest of your post - the target audience makes a big difference.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Janov

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, Janov said:

MSFS lacks the gameplay depth to hold interest for long

People have been playing with FSX for 14 years and are still buying add-ons for it, but part of the problem for MS with that, was that little to none of that sweet add-on money came the way of MS, which is why they made MSFS with a built-in store. I daresay we can extrapolate that 14-year and counting lifespan of FSX to conjecture that MSFS has plenty of longevity up its sleeve, and with a built-in microtransaction store, it'll have more than enough appeal for Microsoft to be happy with how it is going. And that isn't even taking into account all the other technology and apps MS can leverage from the development work going into MSFS.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Chock

[earthdog 842]

17 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

I wouldn't think more than 10% of regular users are even aware of our stuff...

Seems true. I am amazed on reddit and elsewhere when they keep asking me about my CJ4 screenshots. Many people are not aware.. You need to reach out to them cause your job is truly something that can transform a simmer's experience with MSFS.

[Janov 2,383]

1 minute ago, Chock said:

People have been playing with FSX for 14 years

But I think the "depth" of FSX was a lot deeper (even 3 months into its life) than the depth of MSFS is.

[Chock 17,769]

4 minutes ago, Janov said:

But I think the "depth" of FSX was a lot deeper (even 3 months into its life) than the depth of MSFS is.

You must have a short memory, or rose tinted specs, or maybe not have frequented places like Avsim if you think the reception to FSX was a bowl of cherries three months after its release. People were up in arms about needing a supercomputer to run it with the graphics turned up, and that was at a point where there were no fancy airliners or GA aeroplanes for it either. Recall that the thing was even being recompiled and patched to its FSX-SE form eight years after the initial release. Seriously, it took a lot of time to get to where it is today, and it took about eight years for it to get a realistic Airbus.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Chock