I felt a bit of positivity around the Xbox release is needed, especially after all the "sky is falling" posts from those that think it's going to ruin the sim.

The massive uptake in players has been absolutely phenomenal as anyone who plays with multiplayer on will attest to.  Every place i visited yesterday (LA, Sydney, San Diego, Vancouver among others was absolutely stuffed to the gills with players. Especially on the US servers in their peak time.

Now... as was easily predictable it's utter chaos at times. I must admit to finding it pretty amusing. I'd just park up my Bell47 on top of a nearby skyscraper and watch the airport activity.  I'm sure the "hardcore simmers" would be horrified.   (pro tip.. if you want to do a "serious" flight, dont moan about the madness, just turn off multiplayer for your takeoffs and landings) 😉

Why is this chaos good news?  The sheer numbers of new players, and it is clearly massive (cant wait to see some official figures) means that even if we only retain 5% of the current Xbox userbase for MSFS when all the short attention span crowd and those just checking out the graphics all go back to their usual games, it's still a going to be a massive number of new simmers to the hobby.

Releasing on Xbox has brought Flight Simming into the mainstream. This is the best thing that can happen to a hobby that has progressed at a snails pace over the 40 years i've been doing it.

The noisy few will still cry that it'll all be (or already has been)  dumbed down for consoles.  This is completely unfounded.   I saw the same nonsense for years with the Assetto Corsa racing sims. a pretty "hardcore" sim series that many cried would be dumbed down to accommodate consoles.   It never happened.  Stuff was introduced to make it more accessible for newcomers to the world of proper sims on console, the underlying hardcore experience and physics remained unchanged.  I see the same approach form Asobo as i did from Kunos..  Aim for the best level simulation possible then make it accessible to all.

 

Welcome Xboxers!  Those of you who stick with it will find a fulfilling lifelong hobby, not just a game.  The more of you there are, the more nice things we'll get.  Nothing motivates the creatives like a large userbase to make a few pounds from 😉

The Flight Sim future is brighter than it's ever been. There. I said it.

 (cue an endless stream of negativity)...

 

 

I like a positive outlook.  Let's hope you're right, and a greater base means more 3rd party development and competition 👍

18 minutes ago, The Moose said:

Welcome Xboxers!  Those of you who stick with it will find a fulfilling lifelong hobby, not just a game.  The more of you there are, the more nice things we'll get.  Nothing motivates the creatives like a large userbase to make a few pounds from 😉

The Flight Sim future is brighter than it's ever been. There. I said it.

 

100% agree!

15 minutes ago, The Moose said:

Welcome Xboxers!

I am not as convinced as you are that it is a great thing for the future of flight simulation, actually I am agnostic, I have not made up my mind and I see no reason to have an opinion 😄 !

But I certainly join you in welcoming the boxers of the X kind !

Welcome to Avsim and flight simulation (flak jacket optional but recommended - just kiddin') !

Great positive post, and I agree. The influx of new users we see now will likely level off at some point. The generational, and 'new vs longtime' simmer battles are unavoidable. people fuss with each other, look at reddit. Since I am not a member of Asobo, what their plans are for MSFS overall are as much a mystery to me as anybody. But I assume they will likely give us the best sim(game) they're going to give us, based on whatever reasonable(to them) business plans they have. As a casual observer, I would deliver the best product I can to both platforms. Much like X Plane, in the long run a stable platform means 3rd Party developers will keep the sim worth buying.

I was just thinking, that its pretty safe to say the overwhelming majority of MSFS Xbox users probably will never come here, and don't really care what any of us think. But I say welcome aboard anyway.

I've always wondered what the total number of flight sim(any flight sim) users is, and of that how many post, or even visit a forum.

33 minutes ago, The Moose said:

The massive uptake in players has been absolutely phenomenal as anyone who plays with multiplayer on will attest to.  Every place i visited yesterday (LA, Sydney, San Diego, Vancouver among others was absolutely stuffed to the gills with players. Especially on the US servers in their peak time.

My opinion: It will be over in no time once they find out that there is nothing to shoot at nor to kill.

1 minute ago, Lange_666 said:

My opinion: It will be over in no time once they find out that there is nothing to shoot at nor to kill.

Pretty funny, then they will have to give Archie Bunker his joystick back so he can continue playing the PC version with the other "original simmers".

 

Edited July 31, 20214 yr by Alpine Scenery

5 minutes ago, romanus said:

. The influx of new users we see now will likely level off at some point. 

Oh absolutely. But If not a single new person tried it on Xbox from now on and as i said in my OP we retained just 5% of those we have now it's still going to be a huge number. (based purely on my observations.. nothing scientific yet until we get actual figures)

As someone who regularly visits the same places at the same time many times a week in the sim it really is quite extraordinary how many are playing.  Where you used to be lucky to see 3 or 4 people at the same time, even the major hubs, you can now see 30+ people!  LAX last night was a sight to behold (often in all the wrong ways mind! 😄 ) I counted over 30 people just on the apron/taxiways, with many more flying in the general vicinity.

I then went to YSSY and it was a similar increase in users. Same everywhere else i tried.   It gives me great hope.  

I honestly would have gotten it wrong and not expected a large Xbox crowd, but that's why Microsoft is a lot better at marketing than I am. It didn't hurt that the GPU shortage is probably making this XBOX thing a lot bigger than it otherwise would have been.

16 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

I have not made up my mind and I see no reason to have an opinion 😄 !

So you did make up your mind in fact... your opinion is not having any (yet) 😉

38 minutes ago, The Moose said:

I felt a bit of positivity around the Xbox release is needed, especially after all the "sky is falling" posts from those that think it's going to ruin the sim.

The massive uptake in players has been absolutely phenomenal as anyone who plays with multiplayer on will attest to.  Every place i visited yesterday (LA, Sydney, San Diego, Vancouver among others was absolutely stuffed to the gills with players. Especially on the US servers in their peak time.

Now... as was easily predictable it's utter chaos at times. I must admit to finding it pretty amusing. I'd just park up my Bell47 on top of a nearby skyscraper and watch the airport activity.  I'm sure the "hardcore simmers" would be horrified.   (pro tip.. if you want to do a "serious" flight, dont moan about the madness, just turn off multiplayer for your takeoffs and landings) 😉

Why is this chaos good news?  The sheer numbers of new players, and it is clearly massive (cant wait to see some official figures) means that even if we only retain 5% of the current Xbox userbase for MSFS when all the short attention span crowd and those just checking out the graphics all go back to their usual games, it's still a going to be a massive number of new simmers to the hobby.

Releasing on Xbox has brought Flight Simming into the mainstream. This is the best thing that can happen to a hobby that has progressed at a snails pace over the 40 years i've been doing it.

The noisy few will still cry that it'll all be (or already has been)  dumbed down for consoles.  This is completely unfounded.   I saw the same nonsense for years with the Assetto Corsa racing sims. a pretty "hardcore" sim series that many cried would be dumbed down to accommodate consoles.   It never happened.  Stuff was introduced to make it more accessible for newcomers to the world of proper sims on console, the underlying hardcore experience and physics remained unchanged.  I see the same approach form Asobo as i did from Kunos..  Aim for the best level simulation possible then make it accessible to all.

 

Welcome Xboxers!  Those of you who stick with it will find a fulfilling lifelong hobby, not just a game.  The more of you there are, the more nice things we'll get.  Nothing motivates the creatives like a large userbase to make a few pounds from 😉

The Flight Sim future is brighter than it's ever been. There. I said it.

 (cue an endless stream of negativity)...

 

 

What are ‘players’? 
Is it a game? 
How do you win? 
 

When I stop using my flight simulator, I might check this game out. 

9 minutes ago, romanus said:

I've always wondered what the total number of flight sim(any flight sim) users is, and of that how many post, or even visit a forum.

The same as any other game i suspect.  A tiny minority actually visit. An even smaller minority are regular posters.  Forums might be a good way to get a feel of the thoughts of the hardcore community but they are a terrible way of judging the thoughts of the actual userbase.

The good news is that some will catch the flight simulation bug and turn on their friends.  

Also I'm pretty sure that they know how to filter out whiney old farts like me. 😜

Regards

bs

48 minutes ago, The Moose said:

The massive uptake in players has been absolutely phenomenal as anyone who plays with multiplayer on will attest to.  Every place i visited yesterday (LA, Sydney, San Diego, Vancouver among others was absolutely stuffed to the gills with players. Especially on the US servers in their peak time.

Now... as was easily predictable it's utter chaos at times. I must admit to finding it pretty amusing. I'd just park up my Bell47 on top of a nearby skyscraper and watch the airport activity.  I'm sure the "hardcore simmers" would be horrified.   (pro tip.. if you want to do a "serious" flight, dont moan about the madness, just turn off multiplayer for your takeoffs and landings) 😉

Why is this chaos good news? 

Yes it is not always for the best either. To each is own:

Its anarchy at the major airports! - Community / General Discussion - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

 

PS: my suggestions for what it's worth:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/its-anarchy-at-the-major-airports/431817/6?u=cptlucky8
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/its-anarchy-at-the-major-airports/431817/58?u=cptlucky8

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/its-anarchy-at-the-major-airports/431817/60?u=cptlucky8

Quote

 

The post I’m linking to above contains new materials that only occurred to me lately.

The game already has everything coded and used already to supporting spawning at the gate or on the runway, in the aircraft state you’d want. The only missing piece is that they provide:

A selection tool to choose from more than the 2 defaults states they are using and which every aircraft vendors is already providing (C&D, taxi, takeoff, flight, etc…)

An additional spot point which is the RWY threshold, if not anywhere on any taxiway.

At least, offering a drop down list to select from 3 states manually, instead of automatically being C&D at the gate would help a lot and is mostly a UI change and a what might end up being just a few lines of code reusing the existing code doing most of this already.

 

 

Edited July 31, 20214 yr by RXP
more quoted text for relevance