MSFS is now 10 million players strong

[St Mawgan 1,372]

5 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

And you are concluding that from your research perhaps?

No Bob. Pure instinctive distrust of official figures. I don't care either way how many millions have ever tried it. I just hate spin. We can already see how people will happily swallow it if it reinforces existing hopes or beliefs. 

Edited December 7, 2022 by St Mawgan

[St Mawgan 1,372]

I can see this thread being shared with a lot of wives and girlfriends. 'See, 10 million people are doing it,  I told you it wasn't weird'. 😁

[Republic3D 1,232]

I think it's great that MSFS has such a wide audience.
It keeps interest high, persistent income and an incentive to continue development both for Microsoft / Asobo but also third parties.
Even though the 10 million number is debatable in how many are returning hardcore players, I don't think there's any doubt that this version of Flight Simulator has been the most popular in the wider audience. 
Remember just two-three years ago, us flight sim nerds were using P3D and X-Plane, but the wider audience was still on War Thunder and other arcade like games. 
What Microsoft and Asobo have achieved, is bringing us all into one market with the benefits (and some drawbacks) for all of us. 
All in all, I think it's a positive.

[Noel 4,501]

23 minutes ago, Mike S KPDX said:

This is interesting to say the least.  However I see comments stating that "this is huge".  My question is, is it really?  I mean I have no reference to compare to.  Like, what are some player numbers for other sim/games?  What were the player numbers for like prior versions of MSFS?  Again, don't want to be negative, I just don't know if this is 'fantastic' news or not.

I agree 'fantastic' is a little extreme for this news.  That being said I wonder how many users XP/FSX/P3D have had over the years.

[Luis Hernandez 570]

1 hour ago, rka said:

10 million unique users is my guess. So including game pass.

Then I'm counted in twice: once for the subscription I had at release (and then last August), and another one for my Steam setup.

[abrams_tank 7,417]

From that article, I read it as 10 million players have tried MSFS, either on Gamepass, Steam, Microsoft Store, XBox, etc.  I suspect a large percentage of those 10 million players are people who use Gamepass and just tried MSFS out (either on XBox or PC).

Having said that, based on the 2023 plan that Jorge released, and the hiring patterns of Asobo, I think MSFS has a pretty healthy player base at the moment.

[rka 916]

4 minutes ago, Luis Hernandez said:

Then I'm counted in twice: once for the subscription I had at release (and then last August), and another one for my Steam setup.

I have a similar situation myself, but I was using the same MS account for both. I'd think this would count as one. I'd count those if I had to produce a number because of their uniqueness for sure. But I'm purely speculating 😄

[Dermot McClusky 494]

38 minutes ago, St Mawgan said:

 I just hate spin. 

I sympathize with the feeling, but this is a pretty generic marketing article that any reasonable person can take a few points from---it's not like they made a bunch of ridiculous claims that simply can't be explained. I doubt the "10 million" users number is an outright lie, but nobody who has half a brain thinks 10 million people purchased it outright and are using it regularly. Given that MS very openly and aggressively markets the Game Pass option and includes it as part of the user numbers makes this a pretty tame "spin," if you want to call it that. 

You might be annoyed w/ people who read it as 10 million who bought and use regularly, but that's more about them than it is the message in the article, as far as I'm concerned. Obviously MS knows those people exist and is happy to have them misread the info, but the info isn't cloaked in some sort of impenetrable code. 

[pmplayer 9,459]

That is the proof of how well the MSFS is received by the people/the fan community and is certainly the greatest success of all flight simulators that have ever seen the light of day !

Thank you Microsoft and Asobo - outstanding work 👍

cheers 😉

[abrams_tank 7,417]

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

Gee, we are catching up to XP, I guess. 😉

I hope not 🤣.  These are the Steam numbers for MSFS and XP 12:

[Anthony25368 5]

At least 160 million a month for fees to use msfs 2020 to microsoft, time to get servers and program running top notch, that is a bunch of dough that can be invested.

 

[Zangoose 1,631]

1 hour ago, St Mawgan said:

It does include numbers from Game Pass so as always there is some spin here as a lot of those will be just once before realising you can't shoot anything. I'd like to know how many people use it on a regular basis. 

There is going to be a lot more as this doesn't include Microsoft Store/Xbox and there isn't a way to get that. But currently around 7.2k players are on MSFS via Steam: https://steamcharts.com/app/1250410

Edited December 7, 2022 by Zangoose

[RaptyrOne 1,411]

Will perhaps be more interesting to see the $$$ value. Even if a fraction of those 10,000,000 users are buying 5 or 10 $15 payware add on’s, that makes this approaching a multi-billion dollar industry. 

Edited December 7, 2022 by RaptyrOne

[blingthinger 649]

2 hours ago, penta_a said:

Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Cloud Gaming, as well as Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass subscriptions

Let's see...how many of those new users were bored and/or drunk on a weekend and couldn't care less about what they were actually doing. Based on the steam stats, probably 9.5 million of them. And none of them proactively paid cash up front. It was thoughtless clicking.

These stats are garbage for any real simmer.

[FlyingGoose 405]

6 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

Let's see...how many of those new users were bored and/or drunk on a weekend and couldn't care less about what they were actually doing. Based on the steam stats, probably 9.5 million of them. And none of them proactively paid cash up front. It was thoughtless clicking.

These stats are garbage for any real simmer.

Thankfully MSFS is aiming this sim at a broad market, not just the real simmers, whatever those are. 

Guessing you consider yourself a real simmer, but frankly I'd rather welcome new people in instead of scaring them away because they aren't real simmers. 

I guess I'm not a real simmer. 😞