Hi. There was an interesting discussion in the Fenix A320 thread, that started to derail the topic, but nonetheless, deserved some more detailed discussion in a separate thread.  The discussion was, if Microsoft would pull the plug on the satellite/photogrammetry streaming we get for MSFS for the entire world.  As you know, after you purchase a copy for MSFS, the satellite/photogrammetry streaming for the entire world is effectively free and we don't get charged further for it.  If this service were a paid service (even if such a service were available for other flight simulators, not just MSFS), perhaps a cost of $5 or $10 USD per month would be justifiable for such a service.

So the discussion got started on whether this would be charged in the future by Microsoft with this quote from @EGLD:

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I admire your utopian vision of Microsoft but trust me, the infrastructure costs associated with running MSFS, and the revenue it's generating, will be known down to the last cent within Microsoft and someone will be signing that off every year

I'm not suggesting they'll shut down the streaming, I'm suggesting they will at some point possibly need a new source of revenue to cover the cost of running the infrastructure when the pot they have gets sufficiently low

Perhaps the on-going purchase of the client software will cover the infrastructure costs for it's lifecycle, who knows, but it's naive to think they'll run it as a charitable entity

I actually originally agreed with @EGLD because despite Microsoft already possessing the satellite/photogrammetry data with Bing Maps, I had always thought the cost of running Azure Cloud, the servers, the bandwidth, and the manpower to maintain it was not cheap, and that the satellite/photogrammetry streaming for the entire world to each MSFS client was a cost that added up in the long term.

However, @mrueedi and @psolk had another interesting viewpoint on the satellite/photogrammetry streaming for the entire world for MSFS costing a lot of money.  Here is @mrueedi 's analysis:

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Is it not nice, that bing maps are funded by windows license alone? In other words, what MSFS uses is paid beforehand.

And don't overestimate the cost to serve the additional data for MSFS. Cloud infrastructure scales horizontally in extremely efficient ways. In other words, "the same more often" comes nearly for free.

The main cost of something like a global aerial imagery database are the images, not the hosting cost.

And, ... the load scales proprotionally with MSFS success. Therefore the hosting cost is more or less a fix percentage of MSFS revenue. And a small one (educated guess: a small single digit figure) at that.

And here is @psolk 's analysis:

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Not to mention they are most likely leveraging virtual compute and just spin up as resource requirements scale.  Considering they own the virtual compute environment (Azure) as well as the DC's to your point it is a rounding error. 

Thinking they will cut off streaming in 2 years is ludicrous considering the exponential bandwidth and computing scale growth transpiring right now.   If anything even more will be streamed "OnDemand" or cloud hosted in 2 years.  

This has some very important implications for people that use MSFS in the long run.  So Microsoft already possesses the satellite/photogrammetry for Bing Maps so I assume it's of no extra cost to MSFS for the rights to access that data.  The cost would come in the form of the actual streaming of the satellite/photogrammetry for the entire world.  There are the costs for the Azure servers, the bandwidth, and manpower to maintain the Azure servers and bandwidth to stream this to us.

If the analysis by @mrueedi and @psolk (and other folks in that Fenix A320 thread) are right, then the cost to stream the satellite/photogrammetry data for the entire world is cheap for Microsoft.  If it's cheap for Microsoft, this is good for us MSFS users because there would be little reason for Microsoft to pull the plug, in the future.  Thus, if MSFS is a 10 year project, we may very well continue to get free satellite/photogrammetry data streaming for the remaining 9 years and the streaming won't be pulled anytime soon (because if it costs very little to Microsoft, it's just bad PR and bad customer service for them to stop the satellite/photogrammetry streaming).

Feel free to continue the discussion of that topic in this thread so we don't derail the Fenix A320 thread!

 

Edited July 14, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

I think the entire premise (MS deciding to switch to a subscription model at some point) is absurd.

It seems to me this is simply a continuation of the classic Avsim discussions we had right after the MSFS announcement in 2019, where people went crazy with baseless speculation about ortho & weather streaming and how MS would never be able to provide this without a subscription model (mostly because the old Avsim guard was mostly unfamiliar with the wider gaming world and didn't know the first thing about online gaming and XBox GamePass, in particular).

The goal of MSFS on the XBox platform (PC&console) is a massive expansion of the flight sim user base. Live ortho and weather streaming is one of the main selling points for MSFS (especially for people new to the genre), and they would be crazy to change anything about that.

6 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

subscription model at some point) is absurd.

Absurd is the right term.... and repetitive topic.

Paid subscriptions are highly unpopular in the gaming industry right now. The chance of people turning back to XP or P3D would be higher than the opportunity of making money with DLCs and shares on the marketplace that can be achieved by providing an extraordinary sim experience with the help of satellite imagery streaming.

Don't forget, everytime the dev team or Jörg mention Bing or Azure, it's in the interest of Microsoft. They could even place it more prominently inside the sim.

Sounds like the usual fear mongering.  The hosting costs would be huge for a small company, but MS is already in the hosting business on a massive scale with Azure.  Cloud based hosting is huge in IT right now. 

If some smaller company developed a flightsim and also had to build out all the hosting and data, it would be a massive cost, but MS already has it in place, it just comes down to leveraging it. 

Love them or hate them, MS is a goliath in the IT industry right now and isn't going anywhere. 

A subscription model wouldn't work for a niche product like this.  Maybe us hardcore simmers would subscribe, but most casual users wouldn't pay because they wouldn't get the value out of it.  Heck, some of us wouldn't pay and would jump to competitors. 

MS knows they'll make their money off microtransactions from their store.  That's where the gaming industry is going.  That's what pays for the infrastructure costs.  You make money by having a high active user count, not by paywalling off your customers.  Just look at how many airport add-ons are available right now.  MS gets a cut off of everything without having to make any of it. 

9 minutes ago, kerosene31 said:

Sounds like the usual fear mongering.  The hosting costs would be huge for a small company, but MS is already in the hosting business on a massive scale with Azure.  Cloud based hosting is huge in IT right now. 

If some smaller company developed a flightsim and also had to build out all the hosting and data, it would be a massive cost, but MS already has it in place, it just comes down to leveraging it. 

Yup, I agree with this.  The problem for X-Plane is that Laminar Research is not a large software company with cloud servers like Microsoft, so Laminar Research cannot do this cheaply (nevermind how Laminar Research can secure the rights to the satellite/photogrammetry data for the entire world).  For P3D, while Lockheed Martin is a big company, Lockheed Martin is not a big software company so they may not have the cloud infrastructure that Microsoft has (Lockheed Martin may have the satellite/photogrammetry data though, but I assume it's for military use for its military clients and not for home use).

Both X-Plane and P3D could use other cloud servers from other companies to lower the cost though (ie. use Amazon's AWS?).  But that would still leave the cost of procuring the rights to use satellite/photogrammetry data for the entire world for home use (or in the case of P3D, for commercial use).  And then X-Plane or P3D still need a company like Blackshark AI to massage the satellite data and convert it into 3D homes and 3D office buildings, etc.

The cost of getting the satellite/photogrammetry data for home use, plus the cost of getting the cloud infrastructure, plus the cost of hiring a company like Blackshark AI to massage the satellite data, would inhibit X-Plane and P3D from matching Microsoft on the streaming of satellite/photogrammetry data for the entire world.

Edited July 14, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

Google Maps is free, for the consumer version.

But it makes money on the commercial uses. I think Bing is the same. So FS2020 is just like another consumer use of Bing.

In 10 years all computers and the GUI's will be drastically different. So I would not worry, just enjoy the ride for what it is.

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

If the analysis by @mrueedi and @psolk (and other folks in that Fenix A320 thread) are right, then the cost to stream the satellite/photogrammetry data for the entire world is cheap for Microsoft.

I would say so as well. First, storing data on the cloud is very cheap (AWS S3 and Azure Blob .. etc). For the me the expensive part would be on serving the users with the connection bandwidth, running services that serve the service, proxy ... etc. Plus, for sure they do a lot of compression to serve the data from Azure services to MSFS in order to reduce the cost. 

And don't forget, Azure's prices are already cheaper comparing to AWS (not sure about GCP). Worse case if they want to make it subscription base, honestly I wouldn't mind, it is the same for paying for Netflix, Spotify .. etc

Edited July 14, 20214 yr by omarsmak30

59 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I think the entire premise (MS deciding to switch to a subscription model at some point) is absurd.

It seems to me this is simply a continuation of the classic Avsim discussions we had right after the MSFS announcement in 2019, where people went crazy with baseless speculation about ortho & weather streaming and how MS would never be able to provide this without a subscription model (mostly because the old Avsim guard was mostly unfamiliar with the wider gaming world and didn't know the first thing about online gaming and XBox GamePass, in particular).

The goal of MSFS on the XBox platform (PC&console) is a massive expansion of the flight sim user base. Live ortho and weather streaming is one of the main selling points for MSFS (especially for people new to the genre), and they would be crazy to change anything about that.

Microsoft already has a subscription model running for a while. It's not specific for MSFS, but for all their services. Their mindset is simple, they want to give choices to us costumers. You can pay for a subscription or you can buy it directly, your choice. 

Edited July 14, 20214 yr by ca_metal

7 minutes ago, 177B said:

So I would not worry, just enjoy the ride for what it is.

Wise words. That's what I always thought when people were complaining about MSFS not being "there yet" or waiting for another iteration of XP for example. Why wait when I can get something unique already?

That being said - in the current state, MSFS is fine.

32 minutes ago, 177B said:

Google Maps is free, for the consumer version.

But it makes money on the commercial uses. I think Bing is the same. So FS2020 is just like another consumer use of Bing.

In 10 years all computers and the GUI's will be drastically different. So I would not worry, just enjoy the ride for what it is.

You actually are missing a much bigger revenue source that has nothing to do with subscriptions, map use by commercial clients, or anything that has to do with licensing the map software itself.

Data.

The records, individual and statistical, of what people are viewing on the maps, most commonly selected destinations from its navigational capabilities, most zoomed into real estate etc….  that information alone is worth FAR more than license and use revenue from the map tool itself.  More and more these days, the value of a piece of software is judged more by the datasets it can gather and build than the revenue from its purchase price.  Judged in that light, it would be foolish to charge money for use when you are trying to maximize its data gathering capacity.

Free maps from Bing aren’t going away anytime soon…

Well, I don't know about satellite imagery and costs/subscription models, but have you all heard about the new Felix A320 model being developed for MSFS?  Sounds cool! 😆

Sorry, I will leave now...

Edit:  I'm back!  My thoughts are, that the costs will shrink along with the development team for MSFS as time goes on, and when the bug list goes down and planned features have been added.

However, they will still need financing to pay wages and for the reasons mentioned in this thread.  I think the 'subscription model' will be basically the share of the sales generated through the market place, plus their own paid DLC, like the aircraft they have mentioned.  I will be looking at the Husky, ATR, and Ju-52 for sure.

Edited July 14, 20214 yr by bobcat999

1 hour ago, VFXSimmer said:

You actually are missing a much bigger revenue source that has nothing to do with subscriptions, map use by commercial clients, or anything that has to do with licensing the map software itself.

Data.

The records, individual and statistical, of what people are viewing on the maps, most commonly selected destinations from its navigational capabilities, most zoomed into real estate etc….  that information alone is worth FAR more than license and use revenue from the map tool itself.  More and more these days, the value of a piece of software is judged more by the datasets it can gather and build than the revenue from its purchase price.  Judged in that light, it would be foolish to charge money for use when you are trying to maximize its data gathering capacity.

Free maps from Bing aren’t going away anytime soon…

Yes you are absolutely right. And MS is also getting valuable info by how you use FS2020 and what you purchase for it. Not to mention how they can build  profile of what you post on their forums as well as other forums.

Your digital footprint is very valuable.

As long as you are aware of this going on it is OK, but I do think a lot of consumers don't realize this.

I have several friends that will never use a phone or credit card. This is silly in my opinion, but be very aware that you are being tracked at all times. However the chances of all this info being used to harm you is pretty small, at this point.

But let's not hijack this thread with these paranoia musings. Sorry.

A couple thoughts.

First, MSFS via subscription is already here--it's called XBox Game Pass.  It's not inconceivable that new sales could transition to that pay-as-you-go platform exclusively in the future.  I'm not postulating that it *will* happen, but rather that it *could*.

Second, nothing comes truly free in this world.  When the expense of MSFS starts to exceed the benefits in terms of both revenue and perceived intangibles like PR and platform validation for other projects, the executives at MS will make a business decision.  For us old guys, we still remember the business decisions made to, first, shut off the FSX multiplayer servers (guess they weren't *that* cheap after all), and then to summarily disband ACES.

Never fall in love with a corporation--it can't (and won't) love you back.

Phil Spencer said the use of the tech is cheap. That's all I need