7 hours ago, DJJose said:

MSFS has had a 40 year head start and still did not get it right. There's so much wrong with this sim, but I will not go into that, unless you ask me to explain. These threads are ridiculous and useless. They are just a way to spread disinformation. With so many great things to talk about, we chose to talk about the demise of what some here call "legacy sims." Just plain ignorance!

DJJose

I read the article and nowhere in the article did he mention about pd3 sales tanking except on the very last line. Which I take it as his assessment on his sales, not the whole market, due to the time it will take for him to develop his aircraft. The whole article was based on his view on his ability and difficulties in bringing his aircraft to MSFS and given his caveat that this will take time so be patient. And still the OP somehow wants to drag X-plane in to this. The article was about his develop of his aircraft for MSFS. What does X-plane sales have to do with any of this?

Quote

The fact is though, currently MSFS can only be described as "early access" at best, from a developer's perspective. The simulator is still unstable and the constant flow of "upgrades" only serves to increase that instability. Development for the sim is a nightmare. The SDK (Software Development Kit) is still incomplete with large sections missing altogether. This means developers like us have to spend considerable time working out what may be missing and then code up a workaround to suit. For example, castoring tailwheels are still not covered in the sim even though they have developed a range of taildraggers themselves!

Engine code is up the creek to put it mildly - boost control in something like a Spitfire is non-existent and ground-handling? Forget it.

The most interesting section of that post.

3 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

We also know that Microsoft/Asobo is planning to release new content for sale, such as the helicopter add on in 2022 or whatever the timeline is for that.

Having said that, I think after 3 years, if Microsoft/Asobo decided to charge us for the satellite/photogrammetry streaming, that would be fair game of them to do so, provided the price is reasonable. Obviously, we all hope that they won't charge us for it, that would be the best for MSFS players.

Charging for major feature updates do seem to be part of their plan, including helicopters as you note. A cut of sales from the Marketplace will be another source of income. And one more would be Gamepass, and eventually Xcloud subscriptions.

On top of the above, I would be very surprised if Microsoft does not find a way to use the streaming world technologies in other products and services, especially commercial ones, which would further reduce the need to charge MSFS users a subscription.

4 hours ago, Janov said:

I think the phone analogy does not quite hold up.

When the iPhone (and later other smartphones) came out, they could do EVERYTHING that Blackberry did - only better, easier to use, more appealing. Instant death blow.

As somebody intimately familiar with Blackberries, iPhones, and flight sims, I'm going to have to disagree. My employer kept Blackberries in service for many years after iPhones came out for a variety of reasons -- reasonable people can certainly disagree (and I did!), but they clearly felt that it was NOT the case that iPhones did everything better. For your typical consumer, the early iPhones did genuinely had a lot of things they did worse than Blackberries. Blackberries were cheaper, they had much longer battery life, they had physical keyboards (got to be honest, I still kind of miss that as my sausage fingers struggle to hit the right letters), they were infinitely more durable. It's also easy to forget that early iPhones didn't have hundreds of thousands of apps available to download, meaning there weren't a ton of things they could do that Blackberries couldn't, even if they did have a significantly larger screen.

Am I saying that Blackberries could have competed with iPhones if things had turned out a little differently? No. That's my point, and where the flightsim comparison comes in. The fact that P3D, or X-Plane, or Blackberries, had genuine advantages over early MSFS/iPhones, doesn't remotely change the fact that "the writing is on the wall." It's simply a matter of time. You know what year Blackberry sales peaked? 2011. That's fully four years after the first iPhone release. But there were plenty of people who predicted much earlier -- correctly -- that smartphones would destroy Blackberry.

Of course P3D sales have dropped off a cliff. This is not a shocking development to anyone paying attention. I'm sure some number of people will continue to use P3D for many years. People are still using FS2004. Hell, people are still using FS2000. But MSFS is obviously the future -- it's where the payware market is, because it's where the people are. Enjoy whatever sim you like, but let's not ignore the obvious fact that the market has already largely moved on'. That's only going to accelerate in the next couple of years. That statement has absolutely nothing to do with whether I think MSFS is good or bad. It's just reality.

James

15 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

I'm waiting for the first First Person Shooter to incorporate map streaming services.

That would probably be Outerra via TitanIM (Yup, Outerra can be streamed)

15 hours ago, dogmanbird said:

I think one of the last FlyInside releases used the Bing maps in some way. Is this right?

It used Google maps and still did the last time I launched and played with it about two weeks ago (little watermark in the sim screen mentions that)

Edited April 22, 20215 yr by HiFlyer

13 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

The argument is neither similar nor circular. P3D has seized to be a viable future platform for flightsim development. 

"Coming soon to P3D" Sounds silly, doesn't it?

I have no doubt that folks will continue to buy P3D, or buy addons for P3D. Just as there are still sales of flip phones. 

Not if MSFS can't stop appearing on these pages largely in relation to its failings,

11 hours ago, goates said:

 

On top of the above, I would be very surprised if Microsoft does not find a way to use the streaming world technologies in other products and services, especially commercial ones, which would further reduce the need to charge MSFS users a subscription.

Indeed, I am convinced that MS uses MFS as a pilot project for that, testing this technology or rather its large scale implementation and the use of maps. Neuman rather clearly said that they look for a broad user base rather than a in-depth product, a platform as he says.

On 4/21/2021 at 9:38 AM, kaha said:

For how long will Microsoft give this present to us?

I suspect, if it keeps people buying stuff through the marketplace (where Microsoft takes a cut) or paying for Gamepass (which a lot of folks on XBox probably will rather than buying it outright), and it keeps people interested enough to also purchase any future enhancement packs that come out...  the answer may well be "indefinitely", or at least "for a very long time".

Microsoft already own Bing data and use it for other purposes.  They already have a massive cloud platform in Azure, and the cost of using that to stream aerial photos to MSFS users is probably like pennies lost in the couch for them.  I may well be wrong, but that's where my money would go if I were betting on it.

 

On 4/21/2021 at 8:16 PM, ailchim said:

Not if MSFS can't stop appearing on these pages largely in relation to its failings,

Now that's a compelling argument.   Clearly no sim can succeed for long if people have issue after issue with it.  And everyone knows that the MSFS forum is full of nothing but complaints about it, right?

Here's a little visual I did of the MSFS vs P3D fora, highlighting the posts on the first page of each that were from someone struggling with something related to the sim, using what I thought was a pretty inclusive definition of that.  (The pages are different lengths because I omitted pinned posts.)  Can you guess which is which? 🙂

Answer:  MSFS is on the left.  P3D is on the right

Now, to be fair, a number of the P3D complaints were folks having problems with specific add-ons, not the core sim itself, but I still think this refutes the idea that one can say MSFS is uniquely bad just by looking at forum posts.  And the content is certainly not "largely" in relation to its failings.

 

Edited April 26, 20215 yr by kaosfere

My stopping of buying products relates to the way I have lost couple of thousand dollars of software due to the closure of two stores,  It is a pity all discussion of these problems before it happened was stopped here and in other places.

6 hours ago, kaosfere said:

Answer:  MSFS is on the left.  P3D is on the right

Impressive, even more if you consider the maturing time of both products, which is different by more than an order of mangitude. 

Or - should we not better admit and accept that flight sims are incredibly complex pieces of software, and a certain percentage of users will always have problems and therefore troubleshooting will always be required?