Fenix A320 MCDU/FMGS Feature Review

[omarsmak30 4,068]

17 minutes ago, kiwikat said:

Other devs have got to be going through several pairs of pants every time info is released about this plane. If it is what they're advertising and it is released at <= $70 USD, the market will never be the same again.

Indeed. Most likely this plane will be released with less than 100$ price tag (my gut feeling 70$-80$) and with a deep complexity as they are showing us now here. Now when PMDG releases their 737 with a price tag over 100$, that would be a big difference for potentially the same level of complexity. 

[Chock 17,769]

9 hours ago, jbdbow1970 said:

Come to think of it this is going to be an expensive aircraft (should be) and not for the faint of heart. No way this thing is less than a couple hundred bucks, unless they sell a lite version. They have real pilots testing this and say its word not allowed good in early Alpha.

That would not be a particularly well-thought-out way to go about producing something with regard to the analysing host platform's main advantage from a business model standpoint. If you do this analysis, even at a very basic level, the main reason developers are interested in developing products for MSFS, is it is a very large market - i.e. you make money off the economy of scale rather than a premium price - which is pretty much the raison d'être of the MSFS marketplace, and this isn't even considering the 50+ million Steam Users out there too.

If on the other hand you go with a prohibitive price and hope you sell that to some 'hard-core simmers' (TM), you may do okay, but you essentially negate the specifically attractive reason to develop for that platform in the first place. This is why the Aerosoft CRJ and the PMDG DC-6 were not super-expensive in spite of being complex and in several ways pioneering/innovative. I'd be inclined to bet that PMDG MSFS DC-6 for MSFS will sell in larger quantities for MSFS, than it has for any other platform they've made a DC-6 for.

Back with this A320, there would be very little point - or take up - for a 'lite' version when there is something available for free - the FBW A320 - which would be extremely similar and match or even surpass it. Now of course these are two different A320 variants with different panels, engines, performance etc, but functionally in most respects they are the same since most of the differences only really matter in the real world in regards to operational economy; most people not concerned with real-world operations simply regard them both as 'the A320'.

It's worth bearing in mind too that in developing an A320, you have basically done all the donkey-work for also putting out an A318, and A319 and an A321, which again is taking advantage of the economy of scale, where these can be offered as expansions. We can be sure the developers of this will have considered all this stuff and come to the conclusion that charging an arm and a leg for it would not be a good idea.

This doesn't mean they'll be banging out at a bargain-basement price of course, but if they put it out there costing 'a couple of hundred bucks' as you say, that would be commercially suicidal.

[Carts85 1,203]

17 minutes ago, Chock said:

 This doesn't mean they'll be banging out at a bargain-basement price of course, but if they put it out there costing 'a couple of hundred bucks' as you say, that would be commercially suicidal.

I’d go as far as saying 100 dollar prices are behind us.. I think the top tier products will run close but I don’t think will see them go above that on this platform in its current market appeal.

[jcomm 5,939]

Simply ASTOUNDING !

Can't way to get my hands on it 🙂

[Dominique_K 10,149]

31 minutes ago, Chock said:

but if they put it out there costing 'a couple of hundred bucks' as you say, that would be commercially suicidal.

Debatable. Just for the sake of being argumentative 😄 (and irritate my fellow simmers), I’d rather have 1 000 customers at 200 euros a pop than 4 000 at 50. For such a complex product, the burden/cost of support will increase in a non-linear way meaning the more users the more inexperienced/casual users who just want to try if the darn thing fly inverted and why does it swerve to the left on takeoff and why there is no cabin and why I’ve stutters over London when I’ve none with the 172 on and so forth. 

I’ve always suspected PMDG and FSL to have that in mind when setting their prices. Can’t blame them.  That and the image of the brand of course.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Dominique_K

[CJ1045 469]

5 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Debatable. Just for the sake of to be argumentative 😄 (and irritate my fellow simmers), I’d rather have 1 000 customers at 200 euros a pop than 4 000 at 50. For such a complex product, the burden/cost of support will increase in a non-linear way meaning the more users the more inexperienced/casual users who just want to try if the darn thing fly inverted and why does it swerve to the left on takeoff and why there is no cabin and why I’ve stutters over London when I’ve none with the 172 on and so forth. 

I’ve always suspected PMDG and FSL to have that in mind when setting their prices. Can’t blame them.  That and the image of the brand of course.

I would suggest that the sales are more likely to be 1000 and 40000 respectively which makes a big difference.

CJ

[Dominique_K 10,149]

17 minutes ago, CJ1045 said:

I would suggest that the sales are more likely to be 1000 and 40000 respectively which makes a big difference.

CJ

A good point, I agree that 4 000 might be on the low side, but there is a ceiling to the volume of sales for such a product which I would  call the « intimidating factor ». 

PMDG DC6 AFE is an answer to that by the way. Great price and a feature to easy up on users. 

Edited July 17, 2021 by Dominique_K

[Carts85 1,203]

54 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

A good point, I agree that 4 000 might be on the low side, but there is a ceiling to the volume of sales for such a product which I would  call the « intimidating factor ». 

PMDG DC6 AFE is an answer to that by the way. Great price and a feature to easy up on users. 

Thing to keep in mind is Fenix are a new entity. They have no reputation to fullback on unlike PMDG. They need to build their customer base. The smart move would be to sell cheap to the masses (reasonably of course) build that trust an that reputation of providing a luxury product then overtime up your prices further down the product line. 

Edited July 17, 2021 by Carts85

[Dominique_K 10,149]

25 minutes ago, Carts85 said:

Thing to keep in mind is Fenix are a new entity. They have no reputation to fullback on unlike PMDG. They need to build there customer base. The smart move would be to sell cheap to the masses (reasonably of course) build that trust an that reputation of providing a luxury product then overtime up your prices further down the product line. 

If their aircraft is what they say it will be, they will have an immediate recognition few days after release. They will be a star.

This and other forums are full of people claiming the merit of cheap prices to get high volume of sales. Always in the interest of the developer of course. Not in their own as a buyer. No sir 😄 ! I just wanted to say that the reasoning to set up a price is more complex than the expected volume of sales : overall cost including support which is critical for such a product, brand name construction, cash flow to finance the next product etc. Profit vs revenue.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Dominique_K

[mazex 419]

Well, it's good that we live in a market economy where prices are set by professionals that estimate supply and demand to find the optimal price for products. With the demand side dramatically stronger a price like 140 USD would be very odd in my opinion. We are not talking luxury products like cars or fashion clothing. It would only hold true if the nerd population part of the demand side is still the same - but that is not true either. I come from the milsim side and have spent many hundred dollars on modules for DCS and IL2 BoX. Before MSFS I naturally owned FSX, P3D, X-Plane, bur had hardly bought any add-ons. Now I have a bunch for MSFS and will buy what PMDG and Fenix release. New demand. And a couple of collegues at work have bought MSFS and some modules. They had never flown simulators before. Our CEO had read about MSFS in The Economist and sent a link the day after it was released and was really exited... He is an Apple guy otherwise I think he would have bought it. Heck, even my wife who is the simulator anti christ said to me on the release week that I assume you have heard of that new simulator that Microsoft have released? 

I remember posting back when the game was released that if the big developers continue pricing north of 100 USD like in the old niche days, someone else will move in and grab that market. Here we are. 

[rick celik 1,243]

WOW that looks amazing... crazy conspiracy theory... this is FSLABS under a new umbrella 👁️‍🗨️ to avoid upsetting new customers should they find out about the little hick up a few years back. JUST a conspiracy theory. CANT wait for this bird either way. WOW.

[Carts85 1,203]

2 minutes ago, Ridvan Celik said:

WOW that looks amazing... crazy conspiracy theory... this is FSLABS under a new umbrella 👁️‍🗨️ to avoid upsetting new customers should they find out about the little hick up a few years back. JUST a conspiracy theory. CANT wait for this bird either way. WOW.

We had a bit of a joke about this in the other thread.. Aamir the owner of Fenix came out an strongly said they are not. 

[Will Fly For Cheese 1,710]

13 hours ago, fakeflyer737 said:

This is crazy! I  just cannot believe they’ve done this in 2 years. It’s truly unbelievable! 

What I don't get - and I'm going to play Devil's advoate here - is, two years of development and yet we've only had MSFS2020 since last August 2020 and the announcement of it back in June (ish) 2019.

So unless they had the SDK WAY before anyone else - what platform did they start developing it for?

[Dominique_K 10,149]

20 minutes ago, mazex said:

  We are not talking luxury products like cars or fashion clothing. 

Like for cars or clothing, there is spectrum of products and I beg to differ, a 140 bucks top-tier simcraft is a luxury item. You do not need one, you just want a great experience at  a price. We say in french 'Comparaison n'est pas raison' (no need to translate, I suppose), but I will take an other example. You can have a good wine for 10 euros, very palatable. If you want a really good wine think more like 25 euros, and the prices go up with vintage quality. Same here . You want a nice aircraft you can get one for 20 bucks,, want a really good aircraft put 60 bucks on the table, want a great aircraft and we will get soon enough in a higher range of prices

20 minutes ago, mazex said:

  They had never flown simulators before.  

Will they buy a super complex aircraft like the Fenix one ? Would you advise them to buy one ? 

20 minutes ago, mazex said:

 I remember posting back when the game was released that if the big developers continue pricing north of 100 USD like in the old niche days, someone else will move in and grab that market. Here we are. 

Nobody has grabbed anything so far. Fenix 320 has not been released, FSL doesn't show any interest for the MFS market at that stage and I doubt that a Fenix competitive pricing would hurt the PMDG 737.

[ThrottleUp 617]

3 hours ago, Chock said:

It's worth bearing in mind too that in developing an A320, you have basically done all the donkey-work for also putting out an A318, and A319 and an A321, which again is taking advantage of the economy of scale, where these can be offered as expansions.

This is an excellent point. I can see these devs starting with the 20 and then offering its derivatives as expansions. Maybe far down the line (once it flies IRL and data is available) they'll do the 321XLR