Survey Results.

[OverTheEDJ 266]

2 hours ago, Carts85 said:

I think anyone that was going to leave the X-Plane franchise will have already jumped ship by now. Just the flat earther types left there now. All the new younguns will no doubt be attracted by MSFS which is great for us all.

I know someone who "was" a die hard XP user since version 9. In the first week of MSFSs release, I convinced him to buy it. Initially, he did not like MSFS (almost hated it and its lack of in depth avionics), he then shelved MSFS, and went back to XP11 for the past 2+ years.

When, XP12 came out on pre-release. He bought it day one, but was not overly impressed with the upgrade.

Recently, I mentioned all of the advances / updates / features, and upcoming AAUs for MSFS, and asked him to look at the latest Dev update vid; he then updated his MSFS and was impressed by how it has grown since its release. Given all of the updates etc. (especially what WT has on the horizon), he stated that he now just going to fly MSFS because of how it is advancing...

I think that 2023 is going to pull many hardcore XP fans. The fact is....MSFS is advancing fast in many areas including performance. The avionics upgrades (WT) and focus on study level planes are really going to hit home with those who demand deeper systems / sim experience.

Prior to MSFS, I was soley XP11. Now, I am not sure if I will upgrade to XP12 (once it matures more) because MSFS is putting out so much so fast (updates / payware / freeware etc.). So much so, that I am now leaning towards letting go of all my XP addons because MSFS is replacing it (now with Helis and the Vsion Jet).

Edited December 22, 2022 by OverTheEDJ

[CFIJose 5,485]

Not surprised by the results of the survey. I was going to try XP12, but once I saw the graphics, I decided to pass. I'm very happy with MSFS and it's only going to get better and better from its current state.

[Sky_Pilot071 581]

2 hours ago, TravelRunner404 said:

It’s more likely that 2002 is easy to confuse with 2020 and check the wrong box. 

FS 2002 was probably the worst version in the franchize.

sp

[Cognita 1,112]

6 minutes ago, Sky_Pilot071 said:

FS 2002 was probably the worst version in the franchize.

For me that title goes to FS2000, I could hardly get it to run. I remember just going back to 98 - I can't believe it has been 25 years. 

Edited December 22, 2022 by Cognita

[rickjake 247]

36 minutes ago, bendead said:

And I am astonished by FSL for exemple, who decided to prioritize P3D over MSFS for their next products.

I can understand that a larger portion "in percent" would buy expensive addons for P3D over MSFS, but still, they are closing themselves to a massive market, the future of flight sim and leave a big gap that will be filled by other third party developer.

 

FSL might regret that decision when it gets released, as I don't think they will get the sales numbers they might be expecting. I, for one, have been waiting a long time for them to bring out the Concorde and I know it's close to release, but for me, its a little to late now. Unless they have a really good incentive to upgrade to the MSFS version.  I still have P3d on my system, but I have not purchased anything for it in 2 years and will not be investing in it now.   I am one of those that is in the category of MSFS as my main sim now that there are decent airliners and more to come in 2023.   

[Abriael 952]

The result is completely unsurprising, and of course the true percentages are bound to be even more radically in favor of MSFS, as the userbase of Navigraph and even more so the percentage of that userbase who is willing to take a long survey is very much unbalanced toward the most hardcore of simmers. 

Another thing that is even less surprising is that I already see people swallowing Austin's blue pill and dismissing MSFS's advantage as eye-candy, which is simplistic, reductive, and frankly silly. MSFS can count on resources on a different order of magnitude compared to Xplane, and those resources are spent on much more than eye-candy. The avionics update currently in beta and the Airbus A310 were just the latest unequivocal evidence of this. 

Quite simply, X-plane's developers don't have the resources to complete with MSFS in any field and they've been resting on their (already scarce) laurels thinking that they can deceive a significant number of core simmers into believing their "superior simulation oh so pro!" urban legend with silly videos that are little more than Austin's ego trips and hubris. Any residual advantage they may have because their platform has been around longer is destined to be eaten up and eclipsed.

MSFS is already the overall better simulator and the better product, and not by a small margin. X-plane 12 was a rushed, underfeatured stopgap to try and put something on the market to stop the hemorrhage, but we all know it's simply no competition. Competition is good for the market only when the competitor has the means to actually compete. Otherwise, it's simply a meaningless dilution of third-party developers' time and resources.

The fact that DCS is picking up steam is also significant. Their product is very different from MSFS, so it has the potential to retain and expand its niche, which is great. The best way to compete with MSFS (albeit Eagle Dynamics does this naturally and not necessarily intentionally) is to have a product that offers a completely different experience instead of doing the same thing and just saying "ours is better, please believe us!" 😂

Edited December 22, 2022 by Abriael

[Ray Proudfoot 9,032]

32 minutes ago, rickjake said:

FSL might regret that decision when it gets released, as I don't think they will get the sales numbers they might be expecting. I, for one, have been waiting a long time for them to bring out the Concorde and I know it's close to release, but for me, its a little to late now. Unless they have a really good incentive to upgrade to the MSFS version.  I still have P3d on my system, but I have not purchased anything for it in 2 years and will not be investing in it now.   I am one of those that is in the category of MSFS as my main sim now that there are decent airliners and more to come in 2023.   

Concorde is unique in both speed and altitude. It’s certainly not an aircraft that you will have a lot of time to look out of the window admiring the scenery. If you do it will almost certainly get away from you.

I’ve said this on more one occasion but it’s worth repeating. When you’re accelerating from Mach 0.95 to Mach 1.7 in a little over 8 minutes does it really matter what the scenery looks like? If you operate her correctly you’ll be over non-populated areas anyway. i.e. the ocean. What is there to see? 😉

Sales of the P3D version may surprise many. It’s a challenging aircraft to master and that will appeal to a completely different group of simmers than those who like admiring the views in MSFS.

If you still have v5 installed you may well be tempted if you like flying exciting aircraft. Concorde is in a league of its own.

[Abriael 952]

 

2 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

than those who like admiring the views in MSFS.

Case in point.

3 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Sales of the P3D version may surprise many.

They will most likely surprise FSLabs, but not in the direction they hope.

Which is good. Wake up calls are never a bad thing. 

[Ray Proudfoot 9,032]

3 minutes ago, Abriael said:

Case in point.

They will most likely surprise FSLabs, but not in the direction they hope.

Which is good. Wake up calls are never a bad thing. 

I don’t understand your first sentence. Please clarify.

FS Labs have been producing and selling quality aircraft for many years. I think it’s fair to assume they know the market. If they didn’t they wouldn’t still be around.

[lwt1971 7,455]

1 hour ago, Abriael said:

The result is completely unsurprising, and of course the true percentages are bound to be even more radically in favor of MSFS, as the userbase of Navigraph and even more so the percentage of that userbase who is willing to take a long survey is very much unbalanced toward the most hardcore of simmers. 

Another thing that is even less surprising is that I already see people swallowing Austin's blue pill and dismissing MSFS's advantage as eye-candy, which is simplistic, reductive, and frankly silly. MSFS can count on resources on a different order of magnitude compared to Xplane, and those resources are spent on much more than eye-candy. The avionics update currently in beta and the Airbus A310 were just the latest unequivocal evidence of this. 

Quite simply, X-plane's developers don't have the resources to complete with MSFS in any field and they've been resting on their (already scarce) laurels thinking that they can deceive a significant number of core simmers into believing their "superior simulation oh so pro!" urban legend with silly videos that are little more than Austin's ego trips and hubris. Any residual advantage they may have because their platform has been around longer is destined to be eaten up and eclipsed.

MSFS is already the overall better simulator and the better product, and not by a small margin. X-plane 12 was a rushed, underfeatured stopgap to try and put something on the market to stop the hemorrhage, but we all know it's simply no competition. Competition is good for the market only when the competitor has the means to actually compete. Otherwise, it's simply a meaningless dilution of third-party developers' time and resources.

The fact that DCS is picking up steam is also significant. Their product is very different from MSFS, so it has the potential to retain and expand its niche, which is great. The best way to compete with MSFS (albeit Eagle Dynamics does this naturally and not necessarily intentionally) is to have a product that offers a completely different experience instead of doing the same thing and just saying "ours is better, please believe us!" 😂

Absolutely agree and well said.  The talking point that MSFS is just about visuals and a "scenery simulator" was amusing to see in 2020 and 2021 and perhaps even justified to those who were naive enough to think that the MSFS platform's capabilities were fully represented by the default aircraft in the sim then. Ever since the arrival of the high fidelity 3rd party aircraft since May 2022, and then the expanding of the aerodynamics platform by MS/Asobo with CFD, advanced atmospherics and airflow, helicopter and glider physics, and avionics at an unprecedented depth and fidelity as *default* that no other sim can can even come close to, all those talking points have been completely nullified. We now have 3rd party aircraft that use the regular aerodynamics engine, and others who use that + the CFD one, and some of them among the respected/renowned group have gone out of their way to laud MSFS's flight dynamics and say it's at least at par with XP (i.e. iniBuilds). Even some of the default aircraft in MSFS are now high fidelity in terms of systems and aerodynamics, again far surpassing anything else in any other sim.

But the usual suspects still remain at it with these talking points, including the lead of a certain other sim, bless their hearts :)..  I suppose one can understand and perhaps even feel sympathy, when these areas they touted as better than MSFS in 2020/2021 are now at worst equalled by MSFS, and better in some aspects, and getting even better in future iterations as per the 2023 roadmap. No wonder then when the most "serious"/"hardcore" group of simmers are surveyed, they respond with the how *both* flight dynamics and world depiction are important factors, and thus we have this result where a sizeable majority use MSFS as the main sim, with second place being far behind.

Edited December 22, 2022 by lwt1971

[Wise87 1,286]

I’ll be happy when they release Concorde so they can move more resources to the Airbus variants. I still have P3D installed but I don’t plan on buying Concorde. I prefer to support FSLabs when it comes to the Airbus.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Wise87

[Bobsk8 12,835]

3 minutes ago, Wise87 said:

I’ll be happy when they release Concorde so they can move more resources to the Airbus variants. I still have P3D installed but I don’t plan on buying Concorde. I prefer to support FSLabs when it comes to the Airbus.

I can't imagine anyone that already has the Fenix, buying another Airbus from FS Labs....

[Wise87 1,286]

Just now, Bobsk8 said:

I can't imagine anyone that already has the Fenix, buying another Airbus from FS Labs....

I should have clarified, I’m more interested in the A330 they are working on then the older Airbus series.

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,799]

The Litmus test for Xplane 12 will be the state of ongoing third party addon development over the next year or two.

The somewhat pricey "Professional-Use" version has a guaranteed market with training schools so the platform will not disappear, but user interest in the game version will drop off eventually unless a reasonable number of devs keep supporting it.   

[The Flight Level 2,116]

26 minutes ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

The Litmus test for Xplane 12 will be the state of ongoing third party addon development over the next year or two.

The somewhat pricey "Professional-Use" version has a guaranteed market with training schools so the platform will not disappear, but user interest in the game version will drop off eventually unless a reasonable number of devs keep supporting it.   

Very true Glenn! I follow Aerobask very closely. From all indications, they are not interested in developing for MSFS. There must be valid reasons? They have cut back on their product line dramatically!