2 hours ago, odourboy said:

Do the upgrades ever go on sale? Maybe that's the ticket.

No, not until now. They had a sale recently where MS discounted the base, deluxe and premium versions but only for the full version. I can’t remember the exact prices but I think it was a little cheaper buying a second discounted premium license than going for the upgrade. I asked in the official forum if they are also considering doing a sale on the upgrades but I didn’t get an answer.

Edited May 20, 20233 yr by petz_e

I expect they'll keep the price up there forever looming over the people who didn't have the guts to the buy the full fat version. 

The airports really do need a brush up though. As time goes on they become increasingly incongruous compared to how good most of the free world update ones are. 

46 minutes ago, superspud said:

 who didn't have the guts to the buy the full fat version. 

Well, the best decision I made was to go with the standard edition and I stand by it 😀 ! 

I am not interested by the additional aircraft which are just fodder for braggarts^{see note below}  and, concerning the additional airports, somebody rightly said (don't remember who) "as time goes on they become increasingly incongruous" . There are fodder for people who couldn't see that coming ^{see note below}

Note : there might be some tongue in cheek in my post, who knows ?

 

 

It's not the fact that it's uneconomical for the buyer to buy Standard first and then upgrade, that's just a business move. But THAT much... ouch. 

I actually bought the standard edition and agree the upgrade paths are a little steep. I also see why they do this, however, to make it clear that you should buy the more expensive option at the start, which is in Microsoft's favor. And probably people regularly pay that amount to upgrade!

Personally I don't see the benefit for me. The additional airports I likely would not use and if I did I would replace them with a third-party pay ware version as soon as I could, as I did with KLAX and KJFK. While the handcrafted airports are better than default, they are far from what I look for in a quality airport that I use regularly. There are very few of the additional aircraft that I am interested in, and certainly not enough to justify the extra cost. I don't fly many planes and the ones I do I like to be the highest fidelity I can get, and none of the extra planes are this to me.

3 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

I just bought the Premium Deluxe upgrade for CAN$ 109.99.  Not what I would call "very expensive" for 10 additional aircraft, but YMMV.. 😉

How is the upgrade? Can you point the new version to your Community folder so that it does redownload what is common between versions / is it an incremental upgrade?

39 minutes ago, jcomm said:

How is the upgrade? Can you point the new version to your Community folder so that it does redownload what is common between versions / is it an incremental upgrade?

It a Marketplace purchase and downloads as an incremental upgrade.. about 6 GB.

5 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

It a Marketplace purchase and downloads as an incremental upgrade.. about 6 GB.

Excellent !! Tell me how you liked the additional aircraft please. 

41 minutes ago, jcomm said:

Excellent !! Tell me how you liked the additional aircraft please. 

That will take a while.. but at first glance, the Pipistrel Virus and the Citation Longitude are good quality..

Once WT finish their 787 mods... 🙂

I'm also a late upgrader.  Initially I didn't even know I was going to take to MSFS.  I hated it in the alpha.  I also knew that most of the airports in the premium package I would look for payware anyway.  But I'm ok paying full fare to upgrade considering asobo has really done a great job with updates.  

4 hours ago, jcomm said:

How is the upgrade?

Another benefit is that I now got the Caribou at 30% off..  Pretty happy. 🙂

I did the upgrade from Deluxe to Premium Deluxe. It was right after the AAU1 update, I wanted the Longitude sooo badly 🙂 My concern about the cost was eased a little bit by upgrade decisions in the past where I paid $200 for a upgraded FSX and a few years later another $200 for cloud shadows and some other minor upgrades 🙂

And another $200 to avoid out of memory errors.

Yes, I agree and am now dealing with my "internal department of sim-budget vs real life affairs" and trying to settle for a good decision regarding the upgrade.

In my case it' s mostly due to the 787 and the clockwork 172, although the Longitude also tempts me 🙂

Scenery-wise (the additional airports) isn't really a factor - I just install Portugal and Spain World Updates and the rest of the World is more than enough as it is. 

It's all subjective, right? Some people really want the extras that come with upgrading, for others it's just not an issue, which is absolutely fine.

I started with Premium Deluxe at launch because I could see at the time there were some extra planes I wanted. I'd say all in all I got my money's worth in those extras, then Black Square came along and added more. Sure, more cash for those add-ons, but worth it. And you need the base planes to use them.

MS did say for some period of time after launch that upgrade pricing was going to go up eventually. Your hobby, your choice. These days, what isn't expensive?