So I was perusing Steam and saw something that caught my eye.  MSFS had over 36,000 reviews.  Not downloads but reviews and 75% of them were positive.  The other flight sim platforms on Steam were a fraction of that number. 

Not really a point to my post I just found the overall numbers impressive and 3 out of 4 reviews are positive which I also found surprising/impressive.  Over 2M copies already sold.

I guess it shows there is still a tremendous pent up demand for flight simulators and out of the almost 40,000 people who took the time to leave a review 3 out of 4 think it's good.  Most of the time people aren't shy about saying something negative these days so the majority of those who did review were pleased.  That's all we can really infer from that data.  

It also shows how niche this market still is but at least it's expanding again!!  

 

I have to say the only place I get FS information anymore is here and .to and I would have expected the reviews to be 3 out of 4 to the negative based on the climate here so this was actually pretty eye opening and pleasantly surprising.    

 

 

Edited June 29, 20223 yr by psolk

That is a good sample size.  I think most devs are seeing higher revenue from MSFS vs FSX/P3D.

Thanks for posting that Bill, how are the rest of the Gates family by the way? 😀

Just kidding. I cannot understand how 25% of reviews would be negative myself. This is the best simulator. I am thinking though that with all these abundant world and service updates we might end up with bloatware and a hit on frame rates eventually. Maybe a switchboard might come in where you select an area to fly in and it only loads that area into the device you use might be useful.

7 minutes ago, AOB said:

Thanks for posting that Bill, how are the rest of the Gates family by the way? 😀

Just kidding. I cannot understand how 25% of reviews would be negative myself. This is the best simulator. I am thinking though that with all these abundant world and service updates we might end up with bloatware and a hit on frame rates eventually. Maybe a switchboard might come in where you select an area to fly in and it only loads that area into the device you use might be useful.

I don't get the Bill Gates reference...  I'm also not following your line of thought on bloatware and maybe having a frame rate hit down the road.  You have the option of downloading world update regions already.  All Flightsim platforms require at least the global base sim to be installed.  They avoid the bloat by hosting the terabytes and petabytes of data in the cloud.  We've had some pretty complex add-ons without frame rate hits so I think we've crossed that bridge already. 

Sometimes we get frustrated with MSFS because we're hardcore sim nerds who miss certain features of old sims.  But in reality, this is hands down the best civilian flight sim I've ever had, and I've had almost all of 'em since the early 80's. 

53 minutes ago, psolk said:

I don't get the Bill Gates reference...  I'm also not following your line of thought on bloatware and maybe having a frame rate hit down the road. s

Sorry, Jorg, he thought you was Bill. 

I am sorry Jorge it was a silly attempt of humour on my part. No offence intended and as I said I agree with you that this sim is the best there is.

MFS is probably the Greatest Success ever in the history of flight simulation, all variables taken into consideration...

The most interesting fact is that given it's dynamic core development ( unlike past versions ), this rate of success can only grow.

Should MS / ASOBO decide to extend it into the other two platforms - Mac OS and Linux - and it would be an absolute reference.

It wouldn't surprise me to see that happening one day...

Edited June 30, 20223 yr by jcomm

1 minute ago, jcomm said:

Should MS / ASOBO decide to extend it into the other two platforms - Mac OS and Linux - and it would be an absolute reference.

It wouldn't surprise me to see that happening one day...

Are you aware that Microsoft makes and sells the Windows operating system?

14 minutes ago, rka said:

Are you aware that Microsoft makes and sells the Windows operating system?

Also aware they have long been selling Office for Mac OS, and they'll probably go Linux ( some sort of MS-Linux flavour ) in the future ( this is not new...  really not... ) ... Actually Win 11 gives you a full Linux environment already ...

They're doing their best to please the user community, and they're doing it at a memmorable pace.

It's a huge team ? Yes it is, but that means a HUGE investment too, and a huge/ serious commitent to user satisfaction. I can only applaud such an initiative. As much as I was negative about the fait of MS FLIGHT, I have to be at least positive about MFS...

Edited June 30, 20223 yr by jcomm

7 minutes ago, jcomm said:

Also aware they have long been selling Office for Mac OS, and they'll probably go Linux ( some sort of MS-Linux flavour ) n the future ( this is not new... ) ... Actually Win 11 gives you a full Linux environment already ...

If you believe they made Office for Mac because they like MacOS so much, you are wrong.

I was kind of expecting the "full Linux environment already" point... 😉They give you a Linux environment in Windows, which is basically the point and you seem to completely miss that. From this arises zero need to have a Linux compatible MSFS because... There is a windows on the system.

I'd say a MacOS MSFS is very unlikely, but thinkable. A Linux MSFS will never come and I'd be willing to bet money on that.

8 hours ago, psolk said:

It also shows how niche this market still is but at least it's expanding again!!  

Looking at the concurrent player count on steamdb ( https://steamdb.info/app/1250410/graphs/ ) I would say that MSFS is not a niche product, but is in the realm of mainstream sims / games. MSFS has had around 7000 - 9000 concurrent players lately, which is on par with titles such as Assetto Corsa (one of the most popular race sims) and Total War: Warhammer III (a very popular fantasy strategy game series, although the 3rd title has had a troubled launch). And of course Steam doesn't count the player numbers on the MS Store version, so the actual numbers are no doubt a lot higher than what Steam is tracking. 

17 hours ago, AOB said:

Thanks for posting that Bill, how are the rest of the Gates family by the way? 😀

Just kidding. I cannot understand how 25% of reviews would be negative myself. This is the best simulator. I am thinking though that with all these abundant world and service updates we might end up with bloatware and a hit on frame rates eventually. Maybe a switchboard might come in where you select an area to fly in and it only loads that area into the device you use might be useful.

Without access to the code, it is presumably doing something like that now eg. rolling cache.

18 hours ago, psolk said:

So I was perusing Steam and saw something that caught my eye.  MSFS had over 36,000 reviews.  Not downloads but reviews and 75% of them were positive.  The other flight sim platforms on Steam were a fraction of that number. 

Not really a point to my post I just found the overall numbers impressive and 3 out of 4 reviews are positive which I also found surprising/impressive.  Over 2M copies already sold.

I guess it shows there is still a tremendous pent up demand for flight simulators and out of the almost 40,000 people who took the time to leave a review 3 out of 4 think it's good.  Most of the time people aren't shy about saying something negative these days so the majority of those who did review were pleased.  That's all we can really infer from that data.  

It also shows how niche this market still is but at least it's expanding again!!  

 

I have to say the only place I get FS information anymore is here and .to and I would have expected the reviews to be 3 out of 4 to the negative based on the climate here so this was actually pretty eye opening and pleasantly surprising.    

 

 

I'm under the impression that P3D and XPL are not sold on Steam, so not sure what "other flight sim platforms" you compared that with?

57 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

I'm under the impression that P3D and XPL are not sold on Steam, so not sure what "other flight sim platforms" you compared that with?

I'm not sure why you'd think X-Plane is not on Steam. It has been on Steam for several years.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/269950/XPlane_11/

Edit: In fact, X-Plane 10 was first sold on Steam back in 2014.

Edited June 30, 20223 yr by JacquesBrel