Navigraph 2021 survey results is out, MSFS grew market share

[Bobsk8]

1 hour ago, jalbino59 said:

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? 

P3D 4 and 5 are the only significant percentages, the rest are not even worth mentioning. 

[aniiran]

Some interesting takeaways.

Europe accounts for 38.6% + probably 4 or 5 more %. So 43% Europeans. Compared to North America's 32.6%. I thought North America would be higher. 

83% do not work in an aviation field.  That is interesting. 

39.9% of players use no ATC at all.  So just tooling around sightseeing..

I was also surprised to see Wide-body Commercial Airliner was the 3rd most popular type of Airplane. Narrow body Airliner was first and followed by single piston.

23% of people have spent more than 500 dollars on flight simulation per year. and 7% have spent 1000 dollars in 1 year.   word not allowed.  I thought I bought too much word not allowed.

Aerosoft, ORBX, SimMarket are still the top places people buy addons.  But the MSFS Marketplace is in 4th place and coming up fast.

31% changed from another simulator to MSFS this year.

34% of people said they were very unlikely to buy X-Plane 12.  Likely Vs unlikely buyers is split 50/50. I guess X-Plane 12 did not wow the community.  I admit I was disappointed. 

20% of people are still playing FSX ocassionally?  

Of course, I think all the results were skewed as to who actually responded to the survey in favor of PC long time enthusiasts who skew towards MSFS users.  Probably not a really great snapshot overall.

[Adrian123]

2 hours ago, jalbino59 said:

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? 

Ya, if you lump all FS versions into one, it way exceeds all the rest. Why not Xplane 10, 11, 11,4 11.4 etc? Surveys are only as good as the questions asked.

[PWJT8D]

2 hours ago, jalbino59 said:

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? 

Page 120 and 121 of the survey results have the answer to your question. Still no change in the results, MSFS is winning, X-Plane is holding steady with their market, P3D is falling fast.

[PWJT8D]

33 minutes ago, Adrian123 said:

Ya, if you lump all FS versions into one, it way exceeds all the rest. Why not Xplane 10, 11, 11,4 11.4 etc? Surveys are only as good as the questions asked.

I'm confused as to why you and jalbino59 think the simulators were bulked together except for P3D. There were Microsoft 2002, 2004, FSX, FSX Steam, MSFS, X-Plane 10, X-Plane 11-11.4, X-Plane 11.5+, X-Plane Mobile all surveyed individually.

[Greazer]

5 hours ago, jrw4 said:

It might be good to note that almost 2/3rds of the survey respondents are Navigraph subscribers. 

When you factor in the millions of casual MSFS users, the study level airliners coming and the next XP will be Beta bugs galore, there are grim days ahead for XP.

[TravelRunner404]

What pilot license do you have?  74.2% said none.

So what are all these people basing those MSFS flight model is bad comments on?

[Dave_YVR]

1 hour ago, aniiran said:

39.9% of players use no ATC at all.  So just tooling around sightseeing..

 Not necessarily so. I probably fly ifr for about 90+% of my flights and use no ATC. I thought 40% not using ATC sounded on the low side tbh.

[PWJT8D]

36 minutes ago, TravelRunner404 said:

What pilot license do you have?  74.2% said none.

So what are all these people basing those MSFS flight model is bad comments on?

Haha I love this. Well done, sir. 

[abrams_tank]

4 hours ago, jalbino59 said:

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? 

One thing you cannot do in that survey is add up the percentages. For example, if we add up MSFS and FSX and FS 2002 and FS 2004, Microsoft has 100% of the market.  That doesn’t make sense because Microsoft doesn’t have 100% of the market.

So I don’t think you can add up the percentages of all the P3D versions.

[JBDB-MD80]

The fact that FS 02, 04 FSX, still has more users than P3D V1-3 and rivals P3D 4 and 5 is pretty laughable, Shows how much many fake pilots cares about that program and are tired of spending money over again for little progress with each version of esp. P3D is a scam in the consumer scene putting lipstick on FSX while MSFS and actually X-Plane is trying to progress without most of the time trying to fly without messing with the Config files. Then them guys get upset when no one talks about P3D anymore. SMH. Don't get me wrong P3D is good for what it is meant to be and that don't apply to the survey are what a desktop platform is meant to be.

Edit I just laugh when the survey says very few folks use these platforms for training and basicly no one wants to use them  to get a real PPL. Entertainment folks.

 

[mtaxp]

6 hours ago, David Mills said:

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. 

I can say EXACTLY the same claims about MSFS users who use it "infrequently" yet are still counted as a jump for you guys.

But most importantly: " 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."

x-plane mobile that has 5M+ users only on android with unpublished iOS stats (probably not less than android, if not more), this won't go in favor with the MSFS number if both mobile and XBOX users all participated...

Edit: Almost forgot, x-plane was split to 11.50+ and 11.41- although it is the same product, why MSFS was not split to MSFS DX11 VS MSFS DX12? 

"framed" it is😝

 

[abrams_tank]

I think this chart on page 60 of the survey is quite interesting:

In 2021, 31% of the Navigraph survey respondents switched to MSFS, making MSFS their primary flight simulator.  It's pretty close to the 2020 result of 32.9%.  It shows that MSFS is continually converting "hard core" flight simmers over.

If the PMDG 737, Fenix A320, and Maddog are released in 2022 for MSFS, it will be interesting to see if MSFS can keep up this rate of conversion of over 30%.

[Greazer]

1 hour ago, jbdbow1970 said:

The fact that FS 02, 04 FSX, still has more users than P3D V1-3 and rivals P3D 4 and 5 is pretty laughable, 

That's the percentage of grumpy old man simmers, they never sell their beat up car from the 70's. They never uninstall FSX.

[SAS443]

1 hour ago, mtaxp said:

I can say EXACTLY the same claims about MSFS users who use it "infrequently" yet are still counted as a jump for you guys.

Relax, it's a videogame survey. No need to turn this into team X vs Team Y discussion.