10 hours ago, aniiran said:

When the mods first started coming out they were a reasonable price I got FB KDEN for 9.99. but now we are seeing the prices creep up. They are still lower than they were.  Aerosoft used to charge 25-27 dollars for a large airport and now they charge 20-22 for the same airports. I still think the prices of the Addons will deter the the casual gamers who just check out MSFS.  50 dollars for a CRJ will be hard to swallow considering you can get 9 faithfully replicated cars for Asseto Corsa for 9.99.  Simulator games are generally not that exciting and the curiosity wears off fast, just look at MSFS review in Steam.  "Oh my god another update, uh cant download it, 50 dollars for a plane, 20 dollars for an airport, why even have photogrammetry if they aren't going to use it for airports too and it's hard and its not even fun!"  There are a lot of negative reviews on Steam. Although given it is a Microsoft product I have no Idea why you'd buy it on Steam in the first place.

I'm still going to buy where I can get it the cheapest.  Simmarket, Contrail, the developer directly, or the official Marketplace doesn't really matter as long as its the best price.  I took advantage of the Scandinavia sale and got FT EKCH and JS EFHK for a decent discount.   

I have a feeling that MSFS2020 will not be around in 10 years only because Microsoft or someone else will come out with something better.

I agree with you, I have known a few gamers, and they have the attention span of a moth in a flame. They are not going to buy a $50 aircraft or a $30 airport, they couldn't care less about using anything but the  default airports and aircraft.  After a couple of weeks of 2 hour flights on autopilot, they will move on to something else. 

7 hours ago, Slides said:

Disagree. VR and other emerging technologies will continue to drive the adoption of gaming and other powerful PCs or equivalent tech products. 

Consoles should handle VR nicely and MSFS is a good example of how they will start to supplant expensive gaming PC's. 

Thus the MP will continue to grow.

bs

Edited June 24, 20214 yr by bean_sprout

On 6/24/2021 at 10:06 AM, bean_sprout said:

Consoles should handle VR nicely and MSFS is a good example of how they will start to supplant expensive gaming PC's. 

Thus the MP will continue to grow.

bs

We've been hearing about consoles supplanting PCs for years now but it still hasn't happened. Technology moves too quickly.

Somehow this thread remind me what happened to Microsoft Flight.

As the consumer you and only you decide when, what, and where to buy. You even have a choice of where you want to buy the sim, as they knew from reading the forums that people would NOT only buy MSFS  from the MS Store and wanted the option to buy from Steam also. You are in control of your purchase decisions, no one else! 

Enjoy all your sim(s)!

Edited June 30, 20214 yr by in2tech

Is it possible to multi purchase items from the Marketplace ? Seems to me you can only buy 1 at a time. I dont see any add to cart. 

Thanks.

26 minutes ago, Recognition said:

Is it possible to multi purchase items from the Marketplace ? Seems to me you can only buy 1 at a time. I dont see any add to cart. 

Thanks.

You won't see any receipt for what you buy that makes any sense either. 

They did send a email with my purchase mentioned. I just dont understand that you cant add to a shopping cart. Crazy or what?

10 minutes ago, Recognition said:

They did send a email with my purchase mentioned. I just dont understand that you cant add to a shopping cart. Crazy or what?

The email does not detail the item purchased just some random amount of "flight credits" or whatever they call them.

It is not useful for anything you normally would want a receipt for because it does not show what you purchased just an amount.

Before you buy from the marketplace check other outlets like Just Flight they are often cheaper.

Another thing against the marketplace is the download system they use: 

instead of making you download the current version of a product, you download each patch successively, vastly increasing the download size.

So you'll download v1 of the aircraft, then v1.1, then v1.2 etc

I for one am very optimistic about the future of MSFS for the next 10 years, maybe more.  It's not going anywhere and they're not going to have any trouble monetizing it and funding it.

The fact that MSFS is available on the Xbox as well as the PC is huge.  It provides for a much broader audience including many people that might not have otherwise even considered a flight sim.  And it puts all of these people in front of the Marketplace.

Also, there are other synergies at play here such as Bing, Azure and Xbox GamePass all of which are Microsoft assets.  I think MSFS creates a lot of positive publicity and exposure for Bing and Azure services.  Of course, it's difficult to quantify exactly what that's worth...but it might be worth a lot.

In the end, I think Microsoft (with Asobo's talented assistance) has created a very smart, lucrative ecosystem where everyone benefits.  They've taken this rather small niche hobby and made it mainstream.  There are thousands of aircraft and airport add-ons that haven't even been developed yet and every single one of them is a revenue opportunity.  They've created an absolutely massive market by putting thousands of products in front of millions of people in a very convenient way.

Personally, I have only made purchases on the in-game Marketplace.  This is mainly out of convenience.  It is so easy to just wander over to the Marketplace and make a casual purchase that I tend to do it more frivolously and more often.  I'm done maintaining accounts at a dozen different portals, all with different product keys, download and installation procedures.  I'm very happy to be done with all of that.  The updates may come a little slower, but that's okay.  All I have to do is check the Content Manager every few days and I can update everything all at once in just a few clicks.  It's an absolutely brilliant system.

2 hours ago, nbhall68 said:

I for one am very optimistic about the future of MSFS for the next 10 years, maybe more.  It's not going anywhere and they're not going to have any trouble monetizing it and funding it.

The fact that MSFS is available on the Xbox as well as the PC is huge.  It provides for a much broader audience including many people that might not have otherwise even considered a flight sim.  And it puts all of these people in front of the Marketplace.

Also, there are other synergies at play here such as Bing, Azure and Xbox GamePass all of which are Microsoft assets.  I think MSFS creates a lot of positive publicity and exposure for Bing and Azure services.  Of course, it's difficult to quantify exactly what that's worth...but it might be worth a lot.

In the end, I think Microsoft (with Asobo's talented assistance) has created a very smart, lucrative ecosystem where everyone benefits.  They've taken this rather small niche hobby and made it mainstream.  There are thousands of aircraft and airport add-ons that haven't even been developed yet and every single one of them is a revenue opportunity.  They've created an absolutely massive market by putting thousands of products in front of millions of people in a very convenient way.

Personally, I have only made purchases on the in-game Marketplace.  This is mainly out of convenience.  It is so easy to just wander over to the Marketplace and make a casual purchase that I tend to do it more frivolously and more often.  I'm done maintaining accounts at a dozen different portals, all with different product keys, download and installation procedures.  I'm very happy to be done with all of that.  The updates may come a little slower, but that's okay.  All I have to do is check the Content Manager every few days and I can update everything all at once in just a few clicks.  It's an absolutely brilliant system.

Definitely MSFS has a great future. We just need several solid updates to tighten everything up. Things don’t even need to be perfect right now. Just good enough. I think we need another year but hope it doesn’t take that long. Regarding the marketplace, choice is good. I have two add-ons bought in the MSFS marketplace and four bought outside. 

Why I do not use MS Marketplace in MSFS...

1. No cart

2. One must wait weeks for add on update/s.

A few things that would make the marketplace a more acceptable storefront:

• modify the DRM so the addon is encrypted but basic configuration files are not
• issue an itemised receipt that mentions what was purchased
• make new product approval and update approval vastly faster so it takes days rather than months
• ship approved updates more regularly, at least twice weekly
•  develop an actually useful product rating system rather than one that seems to vary wildly on the same product almost from day to day
• add a cart to allow multiple purchases in the one credit card/paypal transaction