13 minutes ago, GoranM said:

No.  I'm afraid you have math issues.  

A reported 10 million MSFS userbase divided by 100 (your number), is 100 000 people using P3D.  As you said, you assumed MSFS is 100x bigger than P3D.  I'm using your number to divide into 10 million (The number given by Asobo).

 

I never said P3D had 100K users.  Once again, please stop putting words in my mouth!

You can use whatever math and whatever assumptions you want. But I never said P3D had 100K users. I dislike it when other people put words in my mouth.

8 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

Re: iniBuilds and their A310 & A320 I wonder if they got a flat lump sum payment or some percentage that is tied to MSFS sales. I suspect the former? Given that they're provided for free to users as part of the default fleet, iniBuilds won't be doing profitability assessment re: XBox sales I'd think?, unless I'm misunderstanding your first point.

I'm curious if MS gives the numbers breakdown of XBox vs PC sales from the marketplace to the add-on devs. I presume so, perhaps @simbol or other devs can chime in if that's the case? That would surely be good info to have from a developer perspective to feed into that decision to keep your product available on the marketplace (and for future products).
 

There are certain things developers are not going to disclose for sure, I can only speak for myself and I have explained many times on interviews, forums, etc. why from a business standpoint of view I am and will always use market place as the only method of delivery, so not going to explain the business part one more time, I think have said enough on that matter already.

However I have never explained my my personal stand point of view, and I think is now time. We need to put flight simulation into perspective of how it can change peoples lifes... I was born with the passion to be an airline pilot, but unfortunately in the wrong country to make this happen.. the cost to become an airline pilot in the country I was born was and still remain very prohibit, is so expensive that simple put you either need to be rich or you join the military air force academy, make your way thru the air force school and you then retire into private pilot aviation.

That was the plan of a boy since it was 8 years old, playing with airplanes all day, day dreaming at school waiting to get home to play again with all the little "Mattel" airplane collections it had, dreaming the day that when it would be able to fly airlines, with the Boing 727-200 being the favourite of all of them. While building my way into the military academy, by the age of 15 years old (vague no) I had an accident that broke my nose in 3 pieces, it was playing baseball, where another kid by accident let go his baseball bat and hit me right on the base of the nose at full force.. freaky accident don't ask, I did recover easy but then when it was time to join the full boarding school at the age of 17, the physical exams came thru and I was rejected.. this is due to the fact, in my old home country, we used to train on F-16 and in accordance with their ruling at that time, small bones fractures would re-open at 9Gs unless the fracture had a minimum of 8 to 10 years of healing, being the nose my issue, it was a big no-no.

That was the day my dream broke to pieces.. I suffered the biggest depression and one of my darkest times in my life.. all I was hoping to do with my life was shattered.. I didn't even had the willing to keep going, everything was pointless.. My father, being one of the best at inspiring people in his life, heard about consoles offering video games with flight simulators, and travelled in secret to USA to see what was this about, he bought an Atari console + a commodore 16 and brought it back home, and taught  me the biggest lesson in my life, I remember that day still like yesterday and I will go to my grave still going by his words..

He gave the console with the game Top-Gun, those that identify this picture will know what game I am talking about:
https://imgur.com/a/EWO4Pyg

His words were, "There is more than one way to live your dreams, never give up..". I was fascinated by flight simulators since then, with the help of the commodore 16 I started to learn to write software, became a Software Engineer and today I have the honour to write software (add-ons for flight simulator) which I know will help people under similar circumstances as I was at my young age to fulfil their dreams.

Consoles for me are incredible important, and the work Microsoft has done to bring Microsoft Flight Simulator to Xbox, Xcloud and other accessible platforms to a vast majority or users is one the best move I have seen in my 25+ years of software developing career. Flight Simulation runs on my blood, and being able to push content to Xbox fills me with incredible joy, happiness and passion and is one of the reasons EVERYTHING I develop in MSFS is designed so it would work 100% the same in Xbox, even if it encounters some limitations on that platform by pushing things as real as I can get them I feel I am inspiring a new generation of aviators and that to me is priceless. Consoles are a big part of my life, it changed it and help me to become what I am today, the day I was able to see my Sting S4 on Xbox I cried like the day I was rejected from the air force, this time from happiness, I took pictures of it and sent it to my dad and we both cried on the phone, he is now 82 years old and incredible proud of what we achieved since he understand the valuable work simulators can have on people lives. We are 2 weeks away of putting FSR500 on the consoles, and I cannot wait to see users reactions.

I have seen so many negative reactions to Microsoft trying to push things to consoles on these forums, and to me they are very hurtful. Try to put things in perspective, the level of access to flying simulation has been increased massively and everyone deserves to have access to it, and this is what Microsoft has achieved with the franchise.

Embrace the change, the challenges we facing to push content as real as it gets to consoles is what is driving Microsoft to improve more and more MSFS for PC and everything else. The future is bight, simulators will continue to improve over time, compared to what I had when I was a kid vs what we have now is incredible.. and I cannot wait to continue this journey, who knows what will happen when I am 82.. but I am sure it will be awesome.

In passing, I moved to the UK eventually and I managed to fly for real aiming to acquire an LAPL (Light Aviation Pilot License), I got very nice experiences flying all sort of airplanes, from DA-20s, Ikarus c42, C152's and others.. eventually I stopped flying in real life, my daughter and wife are now my priority, and I considered being there for them always much more important, saw many friends losing their lives due to accidents and quiet frankly, it made me revalue my position because we are lone in the UK (no family is just the 3 of us), but guess what? I feel incredible happy like I am in those skies, every day, when I am making airplanes for MSFS and then taking them for a spin.. so once again flight simulation is there for me, to fullfill my dreams and take me flying any time I want..

Best,
Raul 
 

 

 

 

31 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I never said P3D had 100K users.  Once again, please stop putting words in my mouth!

You can use whatever math and whatever assumptions you want. But I never said P3D had 100K users. I dislike it when other people put words in my mouth.

10 million MSFS users (reported)

YOU said MSFS has about 100x more people using it than P3D.

10 million (reported users as stated by Asobo themselves) divided by 100 (the number you used as a multiplier) is 100 000.

ie.  You're stating P3D has about 100 000 people using it.

Basic math.  If you want to change your number, by all means.  I'm not presenting an opinion or an assumption.  I'm presenting mathematical fact using YOUR number.

Try it yourself.  Google "Calculator" and type it in.

10000000 (reported MSFS flight simmers)/100 (your multiplier)

The answer is what you state is the number of people using P3D.

If you choose not to accept it, that's on you.  I don't know how to clarify it any further.

Back to work.

Edited November 20, 20232 yr by GoranM

You have more family in the UK than you realise, Raul

19 minutes ago, GoranM said:

10 million MSFS users (reported)

YOU said MSFS has about 100x more people using it than P3D.

10 million (reported users as stated by Asobo themselves) divided by 100 (the number you used as a multiplier) is 100 000.

ie.  You're stating P3D has about 100 000 people using it.

Basic math.  If you want to change your number, by all means.  I'm not presenting an opinion or an assumption.  I'm presenting mathematical fact using YOUR number.

Try it yourself.  Google "Calculator" and type it in.

10000000 (reported MSFS flight simmers)/100 (your multiplier)

The answer is what you state is the number of people using P3D.

Stop it. You can use whatever assumptions you want and use whatever math you want. I never said P3D had 100K users. Don't put words in my mouth. Can one of the mods do something about @GoranM ?

@micstatic Can you do something?

 

Great post @simbol

Firts sorry for my bad english

What must be clear is that each one of us is looking for something different in a simulator, I seek to simulate as close as possible to the reality that allows this type of software, others enjoy with their fairing sightseeing and looking for their homes flying over their city everything is respectable, just as all opinions are also respectable. 

I am one of those who have criticized the consoles and will continue to do so, not because they are less powerful than a pc if not for the type of user that attracts and because segurante looking for compatibility with them we are missing many interesting things.

I don't know which is the future of the simulation, my simulator of head since some months ago is again X-Plane, not because I don't like MFS (I have fenix, leonardo, pmdg etc) and from time to time I fly with MFS, but because with the scarce resources of laminar I see that they are more focused in developing and improving the facets that are more important for me in a simulator, while with MFS with the huge amount of resources that they say they have, I only see mostly WU and WT avionics while other problems that for me are much more critical continue to be forgotten patch after patch. 

I personally doubt very much that people like Hot Start and other first level studios, are so stupid to develop on platforms where they go straight to bankruptcy as it is insinuated many times in these forums, the nice thing in the end is to have variety and where to choose.

 

Edited November 20, 20232 yr by Aglos77

1 hour ago, simbol said:

However I have never explained my my personal stand point of view, and I think is now time...
.....

I have seen so many negative reactions to Microsoft trying to push things to consoles on these forums, and to me they are very hurtful. Try to put things in perspective, the level of access to flying simulation has been increased massively and everyone deserves to have access to it, and this is what Microsoft has achieved with the franchise.

Embrace the change, the challenges we facing to push content as real as it gets to consoles is what is driving Microsoft to improve more and more MSFS for PC and everything else. The future is bight, simulators will continue to improve over time, compared to what I had when I was a kid vs what we have now is incredible.. and I cannot wait to continue this journey, who knows what will happen when I am 82.. but I am sure it will be awesome.
.....

What a heartwarming story Raul and thanks for sharing. Kudos to all what you do and couldn't agree more with you about MS/Asobo's intention to provide the MSFS platform on both the PX and XBox platform and maximize parity for the experience on either. The bigger the tent for a simming audience the better, and developers like you and PMDG and others are bringing out deeply simulated content to both platforms which is great. My only curiosity was if MS shares the PC vs XB numbers breakdown with you developers, but they might share more general numbers with the public one day too hopefully (it'd just be interesting to find out that's all 🙂)
 

Size isn't all...  😜

Edited November 20, 20232 yr by jcomm

52 minutes ago, Aglos77 said:

I personally doubt very much that people like Hot Start and other first level studios, are so stupid to develop on platforms where they go straight to bankruptcy

wouldn't be the first time. but there are more options than "go straight to bankruptcy", there is a broad range from getting by to "it puts the bread on the table" to "it puts a private DC 3" in your hangar. Except for Austin Meyer's Lancair I have not heard of similar success stories from developers in the x-plane addon market. Lancair itself, while not yet bankrupt, is also in financial trouble.

"Size isn't all..."

enthusiasm isn't either. it takes both. Steve Wozniak had enthusiasm, Steve Jobs had business sense and converted it into size. 

Edited November 20, 20232 yr by turbomax

I think it's probably best to keep in mind when RSR says their MSFS market is a "1000 times larger" than their P3D market, it is *very likely* not based on actual empirical evidence or calculations of their sales #s on P3D vs MSFS, etc 🙂 ... I'd think what he is trying to convey is that it is multiple times larger. The interviewer also says the MSFS market is a "gazillion" times larger (so that means more than a trillion at the very least right lol). Abrams was just saying for the sake of discussion let's assume 100x  (which is bringing down Rob's estimate/figure-of-speech by a whole order of magnitude). Getting incensed by these figures of speech used by RSR/etc and then trying to calculate & compare back to actual market sizes to prove RSR's figure-of-speech as falsehood is... a bit nonsensical.

Think it's plain to see for everyone that the MSFS market is indeed multiple times larger than previous sims' and that explains why various major developers are either exclusively now developing for MSFS, or mostly for it. Not shocking news.
 

Edited November 20, 20232 yr by lwt1971

41 minutes ago, turbomax said:

Except for Austin Meyer's Lancair I have not heard of similar success stories from developers in the x-plane addon market.

Seeing as you quoted a comment about the dev team I'm a part of, I'll respond.

Speaking for myself...and at the risk of coming across very blunt, it's no one's business what kind of return we make.  Even when my best friend asked me what kind of money I made from add ons, after seeing the car I drive, I told him I make enough to get by and to also get myself a few toys.  (At the mild objections from my wife.)

If Robert Randazzo wants to show photos of his DC3, that's his business.  Although last I heard, he sold it.

We (MSFS, X-Plane, P3D developers) are here to make add ons for flight simmers.  Once or twice a year, you'll see them at an expo.  Have a chat if you want.  

But that's all.  Enjoy the add ons.  If they can keep churning out add ons you like, appreciate the fact they can keep doing it, while still paying the bills.  

28 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

I think it's probably best to keep in mind when RSR says their MSFS market is a "1000 times larger" than their P3D market, it is *very likely* not based on actual empirical evidence or calculations of their sales #s on P3D vs MSFS, etc

I hold Robert to a very high regard.  I would have expected factual statements.  Not hyperbole.  

28 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

I'd think what he is trying to convey is that it is multiple times larger.

As someone who has been in this business for over 20 years, it's safe to say he should be using more realistic numbers.  I'm a "facts" guy.  

28 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

The interviewer also says the MSFS market is a "gazillion" times larger

Far less realistic than "1000 times...".  As in, impossible.  

28 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Abrams was just saying for the sake of discussion let's assume 100x

So Robert, abrams and the interviewer were all using hyperbole.  But that's your opinion.  I can appreciate you coming to abrams defence, but that's all abrams could have said, instead of calling for a mod and getting mad at me for, supposedly, putting words in his mouth.

28 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Getting incensed by these figures of speech used by RSR/etc and then trying to calculate back to actual market sizes to prove RSR's figure-of-speech as falsehood is... a bit of fool's errand.

Incensed?  I was explaining something.  You think I was "incensed"?  I think abrams was the incensed one in this.

28 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Think it's plain to see for everyone that the MSFS market is indeed multiple times larger than previous sims'

Of course it is.  No one disagrees with you.  They never have.  How many times larger?  Only a few people know.  Having Gamepass throws a spanner in the numbers, though.  I hope you can see why.

28 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

and that explains why various major developers are either exclusively now developing for MSFS, or mostly for it.

Apart from offering to support current P3D add ons, why would a P3D dev stay with P3D when the SDK is, from what I can tell, a parallel to MSFS.  Of course it doesn't make sense.  They can dev for both.  But in the case of X-Plane, only 1 dev (inibuilds) has moved.  Will more of them move?  Who knows.  So far, no other devs have announced a move to MSFS.  I've spoken to several regulars in here, who have asked me to move, and I explained to them why we haven't.  

Edited November 20, 20232 yr by GoranM

16 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

I think it's probably best to keep in mind when RSR says their MSFS market is a "1000 times larger" than their P3D market, it is *very likely* not based on actual empirical evidence or calculations of their sales #s on P3D vs MSFS, etc 🙂 ... I'd think what he is trying to convey is that it is multiple times larger.

Think it's plain to see for everyone that the MSFS market is indeed multiple times larger than previous sims' and that explains why various major developers are either exclusively now developing for MSFS, or mostly for it. Not shocking news.
 

This is the obvious take home message. Developers follow reality and the market. Also, isn’t it great to see success in a hobby further pushed by a platform once thought to be only used by kids!

1 hour ago, GoranM said:

 

YOU said MSFS has about 100x more people using it than P3D.

 

You keep saying that, but I don't see where @abrams_tank said that. He did say MSFS has 100 people working on the team, but that's not the same thing. Perhaps you could quote him so that we can see evidence that he actually said that?

 

At any rate, this whole conversation is silly. It's pretty obvious the original statement from PMDG was hyperbole. But it's also pretty obvious that the largest market by far for addons lies with MSFS.

 

1 minute ago, eslader said:

You keep saying that, but I don't see where @abrams_tank said that. He did say MSFS has 100 people working on the team, but that's not the same thing. Perhaps you could quote him so that we can see evidence that he actually said that?

 

At any rate, this whole conversation is silly. It's pretty obvious the original statement from PMDG was hyperbole. But it's also pretty obvious that the largest market by far for addons lies with MSFS.

 

Asobo have over 300 people working on MSFS.  I think it's actually closer to 400, but I'm not sure, so I'll stick with roughly 300.

This is what abrams said in his top post.  1st line.  Copied and pasted.

Maybe Randazzo is exaggerating a bit, but even if MSFS were 100x the size of the P3D market, that is a huge increase in the size of the flight simulation market.