13 hours ago, Alpine Scenery said:

There is no proper context to the statistics in most cases. A few people noted a few things that were interesting. It actually doesn't tell us much, since we don't know how much MSFS is actually making and the only thing that matters is the bottom line (or at least multiple bottom lines of how multiple things are interacting), and you won't find that out unless the game were a big enough piece of the overall pie for them to include it in one of their stock updates or one of the professional broker reports.

The number says what it says, and nothing more: Two million people have tried MSFS on PC, whether for five minutes or 500 hours.  That's an impressive number, even if we know a small fraction of those people actually became monthly active users of the program.

1 minute ago, Scottoest said:

The number says what it says, and nothing more: Two million people have tried MSFS on PC, whether for five minutes or 500 hours.  That's an impressive number, even if we know a small fraction of those people actually became monthly active users of the program.

People seems to fail to understand how the Game Pass model works. Microsoft doesn’t need to sell games anymore, they just need people to keep their subscription on that service. And it happens having hyped releases every once in a while. MS income raised a lot with Game Pass.

On that matter MSFS was successful, 1 million people used it within two weeks of its release, which was considered the biggest hit on the Game Pass for PC so far. And now it has hit a new impressive mark of two million users. 
 

Those numbers matter a lot to them. They just need to keep this trend for 10 years and they grant a new development cycle for the series.

22 hours ago, Tuskin38 said:

Left side of the image.
It uses the word pilots in place of players.

The article itself uses the word player in the title.

I was being facetious. 
I’m a ‘pilot’, not a player.  😛

I had déjà vu reading this thread. 

 

Edited December 18, 20205 yr by Doug47

13 hours ago, Chock said:

But in case you can't be bothered, I'll help you out...

I have read in here some of the problems that FSX had in its initial release, so now I have a more detailed view.  I could imagine that it had some errors in its release, but the point I wanted to emphasize was the eight years time period. At 2008 it was a solid simulation, so I don`t agree with your old point:

Quote

Recall that the thing was even being recompiled... 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.

So technically speaking, the current state of FSX took 8 years, but FSX was already (at least) in SP2 a great simulator. 

I bet FSX had in its initial release the same physics as it did have in SP2. FS2020 just wants to attract the masses with its graphics, the random feed physical values is a slap for simulation fans. There are some people that emphasize the Autopilot of FS2020 or the physics use just some random values in the configuration files. This is actually unbelievable. At the moment there is nothing planned for the physics to get improved. PMDG has halted the development.

One thing about the Airbus, I do remember FSX had the A321 included and for me it was on the same level as the 737, so I`m not sure what you mean it took eight years to get a realistic Airbus. FSX in general does not have the best physics, but still it was their focus.

 

Again as a side note I want to mention the flight school in FSX, hundreds of page from a real instructor. FS2020 just has some (6x ?) training missions, with an experienced lady, that crashes to ground as soon as she gets control of the plane. What a shame.

5 hours ago, ca_metal said:

People seems to fail to understand how the Game Pass model works. Microsoft doesn’t need to sell games anymore, they just need people to keep their subscription on that service. And it happens having hyped releases every once in a while. MS income raised a lot with Game Pass.

Just like people, corporations can be finnicky. Whether or not something continues on or stops can be as simple as a change in management prefers a different direction, some decisions can go either way (most decisions really), To make this cut and dry, nothing really is, we live in an evolving and fragile world. There isn't any crystal ball formula to know what happens next. I think it will go on, but I'm not going to pretend to be certain, because unless it were a giant cash cow nothing is certain in this stuff.

Edited December 18, 20205 yr by Alpine Scenery

4 hours ago, BigDee said:

So technically speaking, the current state of FSX took 8 years, but FSX was already (at least) in SP2 a great simulator. 

The physics for landing were better in FSX in some ways, but the physics in the air are better in FS 2020 (well again - in some ways).

I would say physics wise (excluding FSX 3PD aircraft) that both simulators have issues.
For other areas, FSX was more complete with SIDS routing, GPS, ATC, in-game flight plans, and some avionics...

FSX was better at the above, but I wouldn't say FSX was very enjoyable OOTB for me, it was at first - but it got boring incredibly fast and I ended up spending thousands on addons.
FS 2020 isn't boring even without addons, it's also not perfect (but being boring and being 'more complete' are two different things).

Edited December 18, 20205 yr by Alpine Scenery

boring is just a mindset, fsx was never boring to me, nor this game.

this game is so much ahead of fsx, ,but yes some things work a bit wonky, thats because the scope is soo much bigger.

you really have to wait at least one year before a good a proper assessment of this game can be made.

ppl here want too much too soon.

10 minutes ago, wim123 said:

this game is so much ahead of fsx, ,but yes some things work a bit wonky, thats because the scope is soo much bigger.
you really have to wait at least one year before a good a proper assessment of this game can be made.
ppl here want too much too soon.

There are prioritization issues in the dev process and issues that shouldn't be here, so there is some justification for the complaints. Adding 100's of new buildings while leaving DEM errors unfixed all over the place, and not just small errors, some spikes and things that make a lot of areas unflyable. "modelers vs coders" is the common response, but the modelers could have manually fixed the major errors, that only takes a few hours to a couple days per continent, depending where and how many errors. There would still be lots of smaller errors, but at least the giant spikes would be gone. It just looks unprofessional to have spikes in the landscape and release a SIM like that. 

Edited December 18, 20205 yr by Alpine Scenery

5 hours ago, BigDee said:

FS2020 just wants to attract the masses with its graphics, the random feed physical values is a slap for simulation fans

Imagine being this wrong.

Sure, xplane doesn't need anything. Let it die an honorable death

21 hours ago, Slides said:

Yes, there is a decline in player retention and that's an issue with every game. DCS suffers a lot with player retention due to the complexity.

Slides, I know you’re a massive MSFS fan, but what you’re writing here is absolutely wrong.

Go look at the Steam stats for DCS and MSFS. DCS has usage has steadily increased over the past few years, it is successfully retaining and expanding its player base. MSFS is month-by-month losing its players, based on the same dataset.

Opposite trends altogether. 

19 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

Slides, I know you’re a massive MSFS fan, but what you’re writing here is absolutely wrong.

Go look at the Steam stats for DCS and MSFS. DCS has usage has steadily increased over the past few years, it is successfully retaining and expanding its player base. MSFS is month-by-month losing its players, based on the same dataset.

Opposite trends altogether. 

ED themselves have said that player retention is still a huge issue with DCS.

You're comparing the wrong numbers IMO. DCS has been out for years. You would have to look at DCS users at launch on steam vs today to get an idea of the dips and spikes.

But yes the product has matured and that has helped DCS retention. Including launch of new modules but those details are hidden in the broad strokes numbers available from Steam.

MSFS just launched and it's active userbase has not stabilised yet unlike DCS. We'll know for sure in about a 1.5 to 2 years about what's happening with MSFS.

 

9 hours ago, Scottoest said:

The number says what it says, and nothing more: Two million people have tried MSFS on PC, whether for five minutes or 500 hours.  That's an impressive number, even if we know a small fraction of those people actually became monthly active users of the program.

Such numbers are not usually valid unless framed in a very specific manner. The numbers would have to be cleaned prior, there are so many things that cause bad numbers when it comes to online statistics. I don't doubt there are a lot of users, but the numbers don't tell us anything in their current state, and comparatively speaking so many other things can go wrong with such data as is collected from the masses.

Edited December 18, 20205 yr by Alpine Scenery

5 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

Such numbers are not usually valid unless framed in a very specific manner. The numbers would have to be cleaned prior, there are so many things that cause bad numbers when it comes to online statistics. I don't doubt there are a lot of users, but the numbers don't tell us anything in their current state, and comparatively speaking so many other things can go wrong with such data as is collected from the masses.

That sounds remarkably like some other 'numbers' bandied about. 🤨

Just now, Ron Attwood said:

That sounds remarkably like some other 'numbers' bandied about. 🤨

Right, it applies to a lot of numbers and statistics people claim to be valid, in real life and in here. Statistics are full of human error and programming problems (cookie issues for instance), and then there are the bots that also try to purposefully skew the stats because of bored script kiddies, that even though not harmful, just like seeing their bots distort data.