13 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Not at all, X-Plane in total has some 30 million users across all platforms,

references please.   Considering it has 5M mobile users on Android and IOS doesn't release their I find it hard to believe that it has 5X that number of users on IOS, PC/Mac and Linux to equate to 30M users or 3X the leading sim in the survey... Especially consider Android is the largest user base in the world. 

  

13 minutes ago, mSparks said:

"A lot" are interested in XP12, my estimate is about 200k so far, but I don't take the numbers at face value.

Yeah, so you are just making things up... 

Edited December 23, 20223 yr by psolk

6 minutes ago, psolk said:

references please.

Me, mostly based on

+Navigraph and Steam over the years

6 minutes ago, psolk said:

it has 5M mobile users

It has that just on android, the biggest number of users are on iPad. And a not insignificant number of them paid for by the US .mil

Edited December 23, 20223 yr by mSparks

Just now, mSparks said:

Me, mostly based on

+Navigraph and Steam over the years

And how did you get from there to 30M users?  

Oy, here comes another thread lock, I am done... 

Just now, psolk said:

And how did you get from there to 30M users?  

Android being about 15-20% of the flight sim market.

Nope... I'm out, not feeding it anymore

Edited December 23, 20223 yr by psolk

9 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Not at all, X-Plane in total has some 30 million users across all platforms, a good portion of them don't get captured by the survey (as you can see from the very low percentage of X-Plane mobile users responding to the survey).

Where are you getting this from? If this was true (and it would be nice if it was), developers wouldn't be switching to MFS development which is now oversaturated, crowded and difficult to stand-out (Just look at all the new developers on the store with studio names containing aviation terms, surely they must be running out by now :P)

I think it's wishful thinking and totally unrealistic. As for downloads on the AppStore/Google Play, just because there have been 5 million downloads, doesn't mean there are 5 million users. 30 million users would be a very big active user-base, and it would be very noticeable.

As for the Navigraph results, I'm seeing some amazing conclusions being pulled from data that states the obvious, MFS is the most popular sim, with DCS/X-Plane having a fairly decent amount of users and P3D slowly going the way of the dodo bird. People who are interpreting these results in any other way remind me of stock/crypto investors being able to twist any bad/mediocre news to suit their own narrative rather than just accept things as they are.

Just now, tonywob said:

If this was true (and it would be nice if it was), developers wouldn't be switching to MFS development which is now oversaturated, crowded and difficult to stand-out (Just look at all the new developers on the store with studio names containing aviation terms, surely they must be running out by now :P)

There is a very, very big difference between how many people have had contact with a piece of software - vs how many actively use it.

This is the main mistake people make when looking at the steam stats - its not showing you how many people have tried the software in total, its showing you how many of them were using it at a particular moment in time. Lots of different ways to slice it, X-Plane has 25 years of people trying it, virtually none are still around.

3 minutes ago, psolk said:

Nope... I'm out, not feeding it anymore

This Navigraph survey says it's 10%....

That 30million is about as meaningful as Microsofts recent 10 million proclamation...... see above.

Before this thread gets locked too (mostly because of the same user spamming with nonsense) I would like to say that Steam numbers should not be ignored.
They offer a different insight and due to regional prices Steam can sometimes be the only option for simmers in less fortunate parts of the globe.

I just checked the current XP12 Steam prices in a few random places 
Chile = equivalent of 17.34 USD
Hong Kong = equivalent of 22.16 USD
Vietnam = equivalent of 13.63 USD
South Africa = equivalent of 12.87 USD

 

3 minutes ago, peroni said:

I would like to say that Steam numbers should not be ignored.

None of it should be ignored (although many prefer to for obvious reasons..) They all tell you different pieces of the puzzle.

Personally I'm much more interested in the rest of the survey. How the demographics of flight sim have changed recently, the not insignificant increase in actual real world pilots in recent times, the aircraft people are interested in.

But the fact that this survey is a snapshot of the entire flight sim market as it is now just seems completely lost on people, soooo many looking at "percentage that fly msfs most of the time" and directly extrapolating percentages into absolute numbers.

 

I thought the most interesting - and most encouraging - stats from this survey was the age range.

 The younger generation are certainly interested in flight sims.👍

18 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

 The younger generation are certainly interested in flight sims.👍

I'd say discord (and the new top gun movie) has played a huge role in this, the lack of a "safe space" for the younger generation hurl abuse at each other and to share their need to post baby yoda and anime memes had almost completely pushed them away for the longest time.

2 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

I thought the most interesting - and most encouraging - stats from this survey was the age range.

 The younger generation are certainly interested in flight sims.👍

I think it's been like this for a long time. IIRC since the first Navigraph survey the most prominent age group has always been in the 20s. There is a large difference between the demographics of forums and the overall demographic in flight simming.

22 hours ago, blingthinger said:

release of a new technology.

To paraphrase Charles Darwin, "Adapt...or perish."

Streaming satellite photogrammetry (vice many terabytes of local storage and the time sink of ortho creation.)

AI-enabled terrain and environment improvement.

Modern antialiasing and other graphics processing (TAA, DLSS+RT and DX12.)

Better multi-core CPU usage.

8K/12K aircraft textures.

Weather and atmospherics.

Modern avionics panels and stacks.

Seamless and global multiplayer.

VFR for the entire planet, at will.

Aircraft and other support from the vast majority of 3PDs. Looking for the truth? You'll usually get closer by following the money, in my experience.

I could go on, but do not really need to.

I've always maintained that competition in our niche hobby is always good for the hobby as a whole. It tends to keep people honest.

ETA: I'm still a potential XP and P3D customer, but those platforms do not currently offer what MSFS does, as a whole. If and when they do, I'll buy. I personally have been anti-M$ since the GWX fiasco of 2016, but they have the best retail flight simulator on the planet.

Also, anyone calling anyone else a "cultist" for their choice in flight simulation software is egregiously offensive, in my opinion.

Edited December 23, 20223 yr by OlliePen

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

To paraphrase Charles Darwin, "Adapt...or perish."

He was talking about people.  Not software.  X-Plane has been X-Plane for 30 years and hasn't even come close to "perishing"

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

Streaming satellite photogrammetry (vice many terabytes of local storage and the time sink of ortho creation.)

No thanks.  I don't want to depend on cloud servers or an internet connection/ISP.  Both can go offline at any moment.  External hard drives are very cheap.

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

AI-enabled terrain and environment improvement.

No thanks.  Molten buildings are plentiful.

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

Modern antialiasing and other graphics processing (TAA, DLSS+RT and DX12.)

Work in progress.  FSR.  X-Plane cannot use DLSS because it's only compatible with RTX cards.  DX12??  Huh??  This is X-Plane.  IIRC, The first and only commercial flight simulator that is compatible on all 3 operating systems.  Revolutionary.

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

Better multi-core CPU usage.

It already is multi core.

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

8K/12K aircraft textures.

12K???  What software exports in 12K, and what GPU can handle 20, 30, 40, 60 textures at 12K without making the GPU overload and sizzle??  X-Plane 12 is capable of running 8K, though.

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

Weather and atmospherics.

What about them?  They're included.  

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

Modern avionics panels and stacks.

They're included.  And can be heavily customized.  Either with generics inside of Planemaker, a combination of generics and 3D mesh, or plugins.  Laminar also include sample code for plugins that is free to use by anyone wanting to make something.  In fact, the customization is limited by the person doing the customizing.  For those who have never coded before, anything in X-Plane can be coded in xLUA.  A very easy to learn coding language.

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

Seamless and global multiplayer.

Included in the SDK.

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

VFR for the entire planet, at will.

??

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

Aircraft and other support from the vast majority of 3PDs. Looking for the truth? You'll usually get closer by following the money, in my experience.

XP12 just come out of beta days ago.  Developers have held off until that happened because of lighting issues.  The CL650 has been so successful, we've spent the last 12 months updating it from XP11 to XP12 and giving it out for free to existing customers.  We got everything working, but held off on a release until...you guessed it...the lighting was fixed.  It's free purely as a thank you to everyone who bought it.  The TBM update will also be free.

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

I could go on, but do not really need to.

Please do.

59 minutes ago, OlliePen said:

I've always maintained that competition in our niche hobby is always good for the hobby as a whole. It tends to keep people honest.

Absolutely!

Edited December 23, 20223 yr by GoranM

49 minutes ago, GoranM said:

The CL650 has been so successful, we've spent the last 12 months updating it from XP11 to XP12 and giving it out for free to existing customers.  We got everything working, but held off on a release until...you guessed it...the lighting was fixed.  It's free purely as a thank you to everyone who bought it.  The TBM update will also be free.

What I would love to see (and share) is a YT overview of these planes on XP12 in 1 minute 30 seconds.

You should get aviation lads to do it maybe, given the great job they did for the XP12 videos.

I think that got lost in the discussion around the CL650 before - my complaint was really just getting the top line of why they were so much further ahead than anything anywhere else required to much effort, the younger generation generally have an attention span of about 30 seconds, even older isn't much more than that, you guys need to get them addicted within that window.

IMHO.