28 minutes ago, Bdub22 said:

It's entertaining and actually even a little sad to see you get so worked up, over "marketing"

omgoodness i know rite?? Equally entertaining to see those mentioning a competing sim when I haven't said a thing about it. Something on your mind? Tell us! I promise that if it isn't about the number 1e7, I won't say a peep!

I thought this was interesting. Google Search Trends from 2004 - Present Day for the term "Microsoft Flight Simulator", worldwide.

 

.

 

There was a decade long decline in interest and then in Aug 2020, the search traffic spiked to the all-time high (release day). After that, it's been nice and steady, and we're back up to interest levels comparable to 2009. The spike around 2012 is due to the MS Flight release, but we all know what happened there. 

Microsoft reinvigorated the genre, and it's only getting better. 

Going back to the OP.  It’s a noteworthy milestone.  Discussions about marketing spin are kind of irrelevant for the simple fact that we just had a 40th Anniversary addition where Microsoft just gave us study level aircraft, gliders, helicopters, and a best in class Garmin system … for FREE.  Clearly this suggests they are doing great financially, so the logical conclusion is that the 10million number is made up of more than enough paying customers to make them happy.

The simple version is that they were excited enough as a team to make a post about it, and justifiably proud.  It’s cool.  If you like it, smile and go on with your day.  If not, your sour grapes aren’t really moving the needle of  the conversation, so .. opinion noted, and now go on with YOUR day.

11 minutes ago, FlyingGoose said:

I thought this was interesting. Google Search Trends from 2004 - Present Day for the term "Microsoft Flight Simulator", worldwide.

 

.

 

There was a decade long decline in interest and then in Aug 2020, the search traffic spiked to the all-time high (release day). After that, it's been nice and steady, and we're back up to interest levels comparable to 2009. The spike around 2012 is due to the MS Flight release, but we all know what happened there. 

Microsoft reinvigorated the genre, and it's only getting better. 

Don't worry  some  one  will  chime  in  about  your  figures 🙂  being  all about  marketing

3 hours ago, Scottoest said:

10 million people having at least tried MSFS is huge.  Of course that's not MAUs - 10 million MAUs would make it one of the more popular 'games' in the world.  But 10 million people trying a flight sim in two years is a huge amount of reach for a hobby that usually goes pretty unnoticed by the mainstream.

.

Exactly...

I will not go as far to say that MSFS is a household name, but I have had several conversation with people in general that when I mention that I have a flight simulator, they immediately say that they have "heard" of MSFS and its modelling of the world.

For all of the criticism that MSFS got for pushing the x-box release...doing so, really put the "sim" on the map for a bigger audience. The collaboration with Nvidia also solidifies MSFS as the leading flight sim particularly when it comes to technology (DLSS3) etc.

Over the past decade, it was a blow to the flight sim community to see the failed attempts at both FLIGHT and FSW, and the remaining competing sims were no great innovators with lackluster updates. MSFS has brought a new tech based sim, a new partnership / collaboration strategy, a new marketing strategy, a new communications strategy, a new internal store, and continues to push new content for free.

They already have us excited about the 1st quarter of 2023. At 10M strong and showing "no" signs of slowing down, this is a complete 180 from what we had prior to 2020.

Where will this sim be this time next year, and what will be on the horizon for 2024???

Edited December 10, 20223 yr by OverTheEDJ

For what it's worth steam spy shows 1.4 million in sold copies for msfs on steam.

I bought my copy on the Microsoft store, I'm not sure what the ratio is 

The steam reviews have definitely improved their ratings

Mostly Positive (77% of 40,678) ALL TIME

Very Positive (83% of 966) RECENT

They have surpassed xplane 12 review rating

Mostly Positive (75% of 525) ALL TIME

Mostly Positive (72% of 191) RECENT

 

 

Xplanes initial influx of sales would probably be from owners of Xplane 11.  Once its released out of beta we will see how many MSFS players are keen to run 2 flight sims.

Xplane targets Windows, Macs, Linux and Mobile.

MSFS targets Windows and Xbox

At the end of the day MSFS has opened up flight simming to a more main stream audience. Regardless of which sim you prefer this is great for the hobby and I wish both sims well.

42 minutes ago, Kyuss said:

A late entry for Avsim thread of the year, but it's showing a lot of potential.

Yes, thread of the year in the category “Feeliings From the Other Side”

@VFXSimmer Yes, it is almost unbelievable to read comments geared to negate the magnitude of a home computer flight simulation success! But here we are in some camps with the glass half empty and continuing to evaporate at a good rate. Can’t imagine the reaction to a real life serious situation.

@penta_a Thanks for the info. Just read all the links and the success is much more than the crazy number of users. Great aspects of Flight Simulator in the future to look forward too! It is a phenomenal team of hundreds of devoted individuals from various sectors that has made Flight Simulator such a success. The credit roll within the sim for the 40th was incredible to see.

Edited December 10, 20223 yr by Doering

4 hours ago, Theboot100 said:

MSFS targets Windows and Xbox

You wrote agood post, let me just add to this list: MSFS actually targets Windows, Xbox, Android and IOS. 

Quote:

With cloud gaming, you can play all that Microsoft Flight Simulator has to offer from your Android device, Windows device, Xbox console, and by browser on devices such as those running iOS and iPadOS.

from here: Play Microsoft Flight Simulator with Xbox Cloud Gaming | Xbox Support

There was an interview recently, when Jorg said, that at two events the userbase basically doubled. Xbox release and Xbox cloud release.

Edited December 10, 20223 yr by mrueedi

9 hours ago, blingthinger said:

10 million is marketing 'hot air'.

Marketing is always "hot air" --> this is why it's called marketing.If you're not marketing, you're not going to be moving any units.

Apple Iphone no marketing:

This is the new Apple iphone. It makes phone calls. You can call other people. You can also receive text messages and browse the internet. 

Units sold: not many.

Apple iphone with marketing:

This is the new Apple iphone. It will literally change your life and transport you onto a higher level of consciousness. 

Units sold: gazillions

For those interested, comparing to other games, from twitter:

2 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

For those interested, comparing to other games, from twitter:

Though to me, that's kind of the point. I don't think a civilian flightsim has ever reached anything like those numbers before. And this is in the face of years of people declaring that the general public had zero interest in the genre, and so there was no reason to make sims more approachable.

(Otherwise characterized among certain enthusiasts as "dumbing things down".)

21 hours ago, pete_auau said:

Don't worry  some  one  will  chime  in  about  your  figures 🙂  being  all about  marketing

Maybe not marketing per se, but a difficulty with that particular data point might be the number of people using Google as their primary information window for entertainment / hobbies now vs historically. I know I’ll usually go to YT or Reddit for that now.

I think Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 launched at the best possible time, and that it contributed to it's success. 
Most of the world, at least in the West was in some sort of quarantine or lockdown around that time.
I know it inspired me and helped cheer me up when things were looking grim all around us. 

I'm glad the sim is the most successful yet. It deserves to be. 

On 12/7/2022 at 7:15 AM, 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. 

SteamDB shows about 8000 per day vs about 2000 per day for X-Plane 11. 4X the competition is pretty dang impressive.

On 12/7/2022 at 9:30 AM, 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.

NOBODY "thoughtlessly clicks" to install a 150GB download, dude.

10 Million is undoubtedly an inaccurate representation of the regular player base, but it's still 10 Million who have at least used it once.

Would LOVE to see the 2 year, or heck, 4 year total for all the other sims.

Probably looks similar to SteamDB's usage graphs, where MSFS runs about 400% higher than the next next most popular sim.