Nah, it's a niche hobby.

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The impressive number counts players who have jumped into the sim from the Microsoft Store, Steam, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Cloud Gaming, as well as Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass subscriptions. Unfortunately, Microsoft did not provide any platform numbers to better get an idea of player distribution in its announcement today.

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. 

3 minutes 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. 

You are missing the point here… the real important thing is there are signs flight simulation is going back to be mainstream.

The fact 10 million different persons were interested on it is huge.

Edited December 7, 20223 yr by ca_metal

1 minute ago, Gerwil said:

Nah, it's a niche hobby.

It *is* a niche hobby for most returning users.

The fantastic point to take away from this is that MSFS has very wide appeal. By-the-numbers serious flyers, buzzing the Eiffel Tower casual types and everything in between is all catered for.

1 minute ago, ca_metal said:

You are missing the point here… the real important thing is there are signs flight simulation is going back to be mainstream.

There are? 

12 minutes ago, awf said:

We all are going to benefit from the large scale of users 😉

What he said...  We might even get a study level Gulfstream out the deal (or at least a finished Longitude with a cabin and working HUD).🍺

Edited December 7, 20223 yr by Dillon

It is a very niche hobby for the vast majority of users. More people trying it or using it just to buzz their house is good but lets not kid ourselves, it will always be a niche hobby. I don't have a problem with that either. 

Just now, ca_metal said:

You are missing the point here… the real important thing is there are signs flight simulation is going back to be mainstream.

Exactly this. The raw numbers aren't that important. What IS important is that simming is again exciting. And this is GOOD for all of us - we have already seen many new pieces of sim hardware being released, quality aircraft are coming down in price, lots of cool new software is being created for the platform, and so on. 

The thing I really want to see now is force feedback support and new FF hardware. I use a 20 year old Sidewinder FF Pro, and that is STILL one of the best ff sticks. Sadly MSFS doesn't (yet) natively support force feedback. I hope they bring that back soon and we start to see some new quality sticks/yokes that don't cost $1000+ like the Brunner one. 

10 minutes 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. 

🙄

3 minutes ago, St Mawgan said:

It is a very niche hobby for the vast majority of users. More people trying it or using it just to buzz their house is good but lets not kid ourselves, it will always be a niche hobby. 

Ah come on...🙄 Hopefully FS will do what's it's always done and that's inspire the next generation of future pilots.  That's not quite what I call niche...😏

3 minutes ago, FlyingGoose said:

 What IS important is that simming is again exciting.

More importantly: it's accessible. Quality of the software is one thing, but the removal of hurdles to access it in the first place is massive when it comes to getting users to engage w/ a product.

1 minute ago, Dillon said:

Ah come on...🙄 Hopefully FS will do what's it's always done and that's inspire the next generation of future pilots.  That's not quite what I call niche...😏

Being a pilot is a pretty niche job 😉

3 minutes ago, St Mawgan said:

Being a pilot is a pretty niche job 😉

Any professional career that requires certification/training is (IT software/network engineer, doctor, lawyer, etc)...😏 That's why it's called a career and not just a job.

Edited December 7, 20223 yr by Dillon

37 minutes ago, St Mawgan said:

I do not believe for a second that there are 10,000,000 individuals who have purchased MSFS.  

And you are concluding that from your research perhaps?

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.