Asobo/Msft reporting 3rd party devs expanding MSFS teams

[abrams_tank 7,392]

So we have been hearing this anecdotally from individual 3rd party developers that they have been expanding their teams developing for MSFS.  But this is the first time that Asobo/Microsoft have confirmed that 3rd party developers are expanding their teams for their MSFS projects:

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We hear from quite a few developers that their teams are expanding as they see the success of the platform. It really feels like the beginning of a golden age for 3rd party developers and we couldn’t be more excited when we see how widely the platform has been adopted.

What's interesting is that Aerosoft pointed out last year that the money is in MSFS now and that the money in P3D dried up:

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And the money is in MFS. All these people got to pay invoices, just as we do. We do not ‘decide’ what platform to make add-ons for, we go where the customers are ... ... There is a serious amount of users of P3D and they were all very willing to buy add-ons, but they stopped buying add-ons in early 2020.

If you put this information together, it seems like the 3rd party developers are shifting their resources to MSFS products, away from the other simulators.  It will be interesting to see how the landscape for P3D, X-Plane, and MSFS change this year and into 2022.

[fakeflyer737 991]

Yup! Once we start seeing high quality payware planes in MSFS (PMDG, A2A, FSLabs etc) P3D will die a fast death. 

[Dominique_K 10,133]

28 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

 

If you put this information together 

you will get a thread which will be a dumpster fire before the day is over 😂. I already hear the gallop of our P3D friends coming our way !

Edited March 29, 2021 by Dominique_K

[abrams_tank 7,392]

1 minute ago, fakeflyer737 said:

Yup! Once we start seeing high quality payware planes in MSFS (PMDG, A2A, FSLabs etc) P3D will die a fast death. 

At least Aerosoft is implying this for new P3D products.  When I think of the console market, to this day, there is still enough marketspace for 3 consoles: Playstation, XBox, and Nintendo.  However, Nintendo tends to go after the market for family video games, and the "cute" design for video games.  Playstation and XBox are probably the consoles that tend to target more of the market for "serious" looking video games (as opposed to the "cute" design of Nintendo) and I would say Playstation and XBox are in more competition against each other.  This has allowed 3 consoles to persist in the video game market.

I can't see the home flight simulator market having enough space for 3 players though.  I think it will be reduced to 2 players: MSFS and X-Plane.  And for X-Plane, MSFS will become serious competition for it over the next 2 to 3 years.

[bobcat999 8,444]

Wow!  Good news - but this thread is going to be like a fly-paper! 😆  Here we gooooo!......

[omarsmak30 4,065]

Okay, although I agree with this, but based on the older threads in the past days/weeks, these kind of threads end up to be a playground of "my sim is better than yours" and then the thread became toxic 😕 

[PWJT8D 446]

I was one of them. I have thousands of dollars in P3D addons but that instantly stopped when MSFS came out. Now I have 58 payware airports, the CRJ and T-45 Goshawk for payware aircraft in MSFS.

We saw the usage trend shift with the latest Navigraph survey, X-Plane jumped ahead of P3D. And P3Dv5 sold poorly and that was a result of the incoming MSFS at the time. I purchased every version of P3D except for v5. When v5 was released, we already had a release date set for MSFS, so no point in me buying two simulators when my v4 worked just fine.

I think this is why we are starting to see a change in attitude from PMDG. I don't think they wanted to release an aircraft for MSFS very quickly but are starting to see the success in the addon market. As @fakeflyer737 mentioned above, once we start seeing higher quality aircraft released for MSFS, that will be the death of P3D. PMDG has a long development cycle. It takes years to complete an aircraft of that complexity. They have tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, wrapped up in R&D and payroll for aircraft and updates to aircraft as well as Global Ops that are all coming for P3D. We hear it all the time on here, "I'm still using P3D until MSFS matures." Or "I'm not deleting my P3D until PMDG releases for MSFS." PMDG knows this, they know they have a huge pull on the community.

If PMDG released the 737 for MSFS before they had their P3D development cycle completed, they wouldn't sell squat for P3D. All that money in development costs would be for nothing.

So I think we still have some of the big hitters wanting to finish up their P3D work first as to not pull the last hold-out users of P3D away to another simulator.

Edited March 29, 2021 by PWJT8D

[abrams_tank 7,392]

8 minutes ago, PWJT8D said:

We saw the usage trend shift with the latest Navigraph survey, X-Plane jumped ahead of P3D

Oh, that's interesting.  Is there a link to the Navigraph survey? I would be curious as to the trend between MSFS and X-Plane too, if that data is shown in the latest Navigraph survey.  It would give us some clues as to what is happening in the landscape for home flight simulators.

Edited March 29, 2021 by abrams_tank

[PWJT8D 446]

5 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Is there a link to the Navigraph survey?

You have to scroll down a bit to those answers but here is the link.

[Ben Humler 31]

25 minutes ago, fakeflyer737 said:

Yup! Once we start seeing high quality payware planes in MSFS (PMDG, A2A, FSLabs etc) P3D will die a fast death. 

But even in his eventual and natural death (which could be the price of evolution) he will be remembered and pleasantly played by all those who still like him today and who will be able to enjoy him for many years to come. Potentially forever ,as well as fsx or fs2004 or any other "big old" of this genre. I still have a boxed edition of desert storm: tornado from 1993, what is dead and what is not and what could become it , seems a risky bet , better not to do it and openly enjoy any software that is proposed.

 

[fakeflyer737 991]

6 minutes ago, Ben Humler said:

But even in his eventual and natural death (which could be the price of evolution) he will be remembered and pleasantly played by all those who still like him today and who will be able to enjoy him for many years to come. Potentially forever ,as well as fsx or fs2004 or any other "big old" of this genre. I still have a boxed edition of desert storm: tornado from 1993, what is dead and what is not and what could become it , seems a risky bet , better not to do it and openly enjoy any software that is proposed.

 

I see your point and it is a good one however, I would think you’re in the minority here.

 

[abrams_tank 7,392]

14 minutes ago, PWJT8D said:

You have to scroll down a bit to those answers but here is the link.

Thanks!  It will be interesting to see the results of the 2021 survey and compare it to the 2020 survey!