This MSFS forum, with 377,100+ posts overtook the Prepar3D forum today in terms of total posts. And it feels quite symbolic.

I never bought Prepar3D, stopping at FS9 after my computer at the time couldn’t run FSX beyond a slideshow, only to return for MSFS 2020 via a quick stint in XP-11.

The last month or two really does seem like a turning point for MSFS, with the release of several high fidelity planes equal to those available in Prepare3D; a big reduction in angry posts (on this forum at least) about the state of the platform; a reduction in the perceived dismissal of the platform from various commercial providers; and most importantly, a big increase in new members actively asking for help in making the switch over to MSFS.

I hope the future of this platform is bright, and I look forward to the launch of XP-12. It’s always good to have multiple choices and different approaches to making the same (or similar) things. And I wonder whether Lockheed Martin has any surprises up it’s sleeve for the future of the Prepare3D platform.

 

 

 

I wonder what sales are like now for those other two platforms (P3D and XPlane)?  I can't talk, I stayed with FS9 for the most part up until FS2020 because I couldn't rationalize the hardware needed to run FSX.  It didn't make since that sim performed so poorly for so long even on hardware released years after its release.  Even P3D with that legacy code needed far more than what it should for the graphics is produced.  I saw the difference in other titles outside of FS so I skipped any form of FSX code that was released.  FS2020 has some of that code but it's so far refined you can't tell it (wish they would have left more of that AI/ATC engine still in place then we'd have a good airliner environment on our hands with the new crop of birds coming out now).  That being said I'm rooting for Lockheed and Laminar.  If they can get a deal going with Google Earth they'd be back in the game.  We need the competition.  I'd hate for FS2020 to shift gears and we'd have nowhere to got as a community but backwards, that would be hard.  I haven't wiped my old FS9 box yet just in case.😏   

Big deal......

27 minutes ago, Redge said:

I wonder whether Lockheed Martin has any surprises up it’s sleeve for the future

what for? you are not supposed to have fun with P3D, P3D is strictly NOT for the entertainment market! only serious hard core, study level and so on simmers ™ allowed.

Edited June 5, 20224 yr by turbomax

I think the MSFS forum here at Avsim is one of the most active forums now.  And I would guess that over 90% of Avsim users are using MSFS now, in some capacity.

Pretty striking when you think MSFS has been out less than 2 years (just), and P3D V1 came out in 2011.  To have overtaken the post count already.

Lots of factors at play I guess;  Xbox market widening the net, true entertainment licence rather than people having to pretend their not 'entertaining themselves' but purely training in P3D.

They said it would crash and burn like MS Flight and that we had to pay a monthly subscription fee and that we would never get advanced aircrafts...

 

13 minutes ago, espent said:

They said it would crash and burn like MS Flight and that we had to pay a monthly subscription fee and that we would never get advanced aircrafts...
 

Lol, I recall a particular clown from another sim's forum who insisted on and repeated this nonsense over and over.. always amusing to see their battles with reality, inevitably resulting in sniffing heaps of copium :||
 

Edited June 5, 20224 yr by lwt1971

I think that most simmers realize that you can't float a boat on a dried up lake.

sp

30 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Lol, I recall a particular clown from another sim's forum who insisted on and repeated this nonsense over and over.. always amusing to see their battles with reality, inevitably resulting in sniffing heaps of copium :||
 

He is on a mission in other forums 👀

2 hours ago, wwdavis said:

Big deal......

I agree with you completely davis, this is indeed a very big deal.

P3D is not and was never intended to be a mainstream home/desktop simulation platform. It is a very niche product and is quite inaccessible to the vast majority of casual and home simmers. It gained some popularity amongst dedicated simmers because it was a natural step from FSX being based on the same underlying platform and it was really all there was at the time.

MSFS is the first true mainstream entry in the home flight simulation genre in over a decade, and its audience is much more far-reaching than a sim like P3D or even Xplane.

Edited June 5, 20224 yr by Tom Wright

2 hours ago, turbomax said:

what for? you are not supposed to have fun with P3D, P3D is strictly NOT for the entertainment market! only serious hard core, study level and so on simmers ™ allowed.

You left out $200 a copy. 

3 hours ago, Dillon said:

That being said I'm rooting for Lockheed and Laminar.  If they can get a deal going with Google Earth they'd be back in the game.

I am not so sure about this, especially for P3D. As Tom said, P3D was never intended as a mainstream home/desktop simulation platform; it is a dedicated simulation platform aimed at military, fire/rescue, police, and corporate entities that have a need to script scenarios for training and planning purposes. I have never thought LM and MSFS were in competition; they offer different products with different purposes aimed at different audiences. The fact that a few thousand home flight simulator enthusiasts jumped on board P3D was just a bit of an anomaly in LM's business plan; although one I am sure they appreciated. I just don't see the business case for LM undertaking the expensive investment of using satellite imagery -- either from Google or its own -- combined with AI technology like that being pioneered by Black Shark just to draw back home flight simulator enthusiasts, a move that very well may impact any agreement it has with Microsoft about not entering the consumer/entertainment market.

But this aside, even if LM did this, would it work? Even if they launch the next version with basically the same scenery, the same graphics quality, the same weather capability -- even if it was a little better than MSFS -- would  we all switch back to P3D? What would motivate me to do that, it would just be the same thing I already have in MSFS. Why would I spend the money and invest the time to switch back? LM would have to come up with something far, far better in quality and depth than what MSFS has already developed and plans to develop.

And there is another aspect to this. Part of my engagement with this hobby is the community, the talking and sharing our engagement with aviation and flight simulation. This has strengthened dramatically under MSFS -- and the number of forum posts illustrates this -- LM was just dead silent, disengaged, uninterested. It never created a spirit that helped animate and engage a group of people sharing a hobby.

When looking at the grand scheme of things, outside of sim tribalism in the home flight sim market and forums :), I wonder stuff sometimes and it might border on the ridiculous so bear with me... given the history of partnership or association or whatever between MS and LM, who's to say that can't happen again? Could there be a scenario where MS decides to cater to the commercial/military market sometime in the future and then do so via a partnership with LM? I don't think that a dependence on a set of servers via the internet for functioning of the sim is a deal-breaker for the commercial/military market per se.. especially for private cloud infrastructures where the server cloud environment could be completely under the control of the commercial/military client, replicating a full or subset of the MSFS server content/functionality, etc.

In any sense, even if LM and MS don't partner up again, I have a strong feeling MS has big ambitions beyond just MSFS for the technology stack and world/weather/physics environment it has created and continues to evolve. At the very least, I wouldn't be surprised if MS dips into the commercial aviation market some time in the future with a MSFS variant.

Edited June 6, 20224 yr by lwt1971