Well, the Navigraph 2021 survey results are out.  And not surprisingly, MSFS grew market share among Navigraph survey takers. You can download the full results of the Navigraph survey here.  The most interesting part is the graphs on page 58 and page 59, which shows the difference between this year and last year's survey.

This year's survey:

Last year's survey:

As you can see, MSFS market share grew among Navigraph survey takers, probably taking market share from P3D.  Mind you, I think Navigraph survey takers are the most "hard core" of flight simmers.  So the "hard core" flight sim market is giving a thumbs up to MSFS over the last year. 

It will be interesting when the PMDG 737, Fenix A320, Maddog, and other high fidelity airliners are released for MSFS.  I suspect MSFS will take even more market share (having said that, XP 12 is on the horizon so XP may hit back with XP 12).

 

Edited December 29, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

we are going to have fun 2022!

1 minute ago, sd_flyer said:

we are going to have fun 2022!

I expect the PMDG 737, Fenix A320, and Maddog to be released in 2022.  2022 could be the best year yet for MSFS among the "hard core" flight sim community.

What i love is the fantastic age distribution among the respondents - quite the community for our little hobby.

@David Mills You wanted the Navigraph survey results, well the survey results are here.

DCS has taken over from P3D, P3D v4 has droped a lot. Intresting.

If MSFS get PMDG and FENIX, MadDog and the Q400 next year I dread to think what the figures will look like for P3D next year.

Edited December 29, 20214 yr by Nyxx

Laminar is going to want to team up with Google or merge with Asbo. Just speculating because scenery is the reason people are flocking to MSFS2020. You could spend hundreds on getting Land Class proper in X-Plane but if there is one good thing I can say about MSFS2020, the Land Class is second to none. Yet to see a palm tree growing out of a beach in New England

Edited December 29, 20214 yr by MSFLYER5856

2 minutes ago, MSFLYER5856 said:

Laminar is going to want to team up with Google or merge with Asbo. Just speculating because scenery is the reason people are flocking to MSFS2020. You could spend hundreds on getting Land Class proper in X-Plane but if there is one good thing I can say about MSFS2020, the Land Class is second to none. Yet to see a palm tree growing out of a beach in New England

You will never get to have XP look as realistic as MSFS.

There's one thing I find very shocking: 62,9% (15222 participants out of a sample of 24200 in total) find Jeppesen Charts to be the best chart format out there compared to just 6,8% (1646/24200) who prefer Lufthansa Systems / Lido Charts.

I thought about getting Navigraph Charts but then Navigraph decided to switch from Lido to Jeppesen format and I quickly dismissed the idea of subscribing to their charts product, because I find the Jeppesen Chart format absolutely awful.

Seems like I'm among the very few that think so 😅

Just compare Lido chart format with Jeppesen Charts...

 

 

 

 

And as far as I remember Jeppesen doesn't have the absolutely useful AFC chart LH offers:

 

 

 

Please tell me I'm not the only one who prefers Lido over Jeppesen 😅😅😅

 

It might be good to note that almost 2/3rds of the survey respondents are Navigraph subscribers. I'm guessing that this is an unrepresentative group of flight simmers in general. Also virtually none run flight sim on a Xbox. So these results are interesting, but might very well not represent the views of a "typical" flight sim participant. With regard to the previous post concerning IFR chart format preference, the respondents are largely Navigraph customers already.

I noticed that there were quite a few EFB users, which I use,. No need for charts, it is right in the EFB no matter where in MSFS I fly. 

 

Interesting that Xplane seemed to grow it’s share a bit, not sure if it was a statistically valid change or not but it’s noticeable.

1 hour ago, Konterhalbe said:

Please tell me I'm not the only one who prefers Lido over Jeppesen

I’ve never even seen a Lido chart. Where would I find them? 

Maybe it’s because it’s what I’m used to but I find the Jeppesen easier to find relevant info. On the ILS chart for instance, it took me forever to find the ILS frequency. My eye went straight to it on Jepp. Same for Elevation on Airport Diagram. 

So I guess it’s what you are used to. 

13 minutes ago, regis9 said:

Interesting that Xplane seemed to grow it’s share a bit, not sure if it was a statistically valid change or not but it’s noticeable.

A few weeks ago, we saw stats that MSFS for XBox now boasts more users than MSFS for PC -- a fact that the Navigraph survey completely, though inadvertently, obscures. From the Navigraph survey, it appears that the XBox users make up only a minuscule fraction of the MSFS base, instead of the majority. This several-hundred-percent discrepancy -- between the actual and the reported number of MSFS users on Xbox -- is due to the fact that few people receive and respond to emailed survey solicitations on their XBox gaming platform. So the relative number of MSFS to X-Plane users is downsized by a gargantuan number.

Also, it's instructive how the results are framed to cast a positive light on X-Plane. For example, a mere 30% of the respondents said they are "likely" or "very likely" to buy X-Plane 12 (even with the percentage of X-Plane users vastly skewed in their favor). Yet the "possible" purchases of X-Plane 12 are added into the summary statistics to create the narrative that a majority of the entire flight simming community is planning to buy X-Plane 12 ("50.4 percent") when it is released. This is self-evidently ridiculous. 

Interesting how P3D is the only title that's separated into all 5 versions.  If the inquiry had been P3D (All versions) would the percentages have changed? What if they asked about all versions of x-plane? or FSX for that matter?