Highest actively monthly user number in over a year for MSFS

[Fiorentoni 4,253]

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

The Avsim way, anything positive posted about MSFS, will be immediately followed by members claiming that the positive comments are just not true. 

Differentiating between different types of statistics and their predictive value does not mean "it's all lies". I'm pretty sure MSFS is a very successful sim overall.

[Cognita 1,089]

6 hours ago, St Mawgan said:

Jean Baudrillard

I have to say that a flight simulation forum is one of the last places I expected to see Baudrillard be quoted -- although, come to think of it, sometimes these forums do appear to be a place of hyper-reality!

[F737MAX 5,619]

5 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

Because

Pretty sure we're agreeing that it's a completely spurious statistic. 😉

Serves me right for being sloppy with my grammar.

[abrams_tank 7,426]

18 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

Because the "active users in a year" is a simple counter. Person accidentally opens MSFS? +1 active user, even if he never uses it again in that year.
What actually matters for marketplace sales is the amount of hours users play MSFS. Of course every "new" user is a potential long time user, but this percentage can vary wildly. I think only a very small percentage of MSFS users are regular users. Still a lot more than with P3D or XPL in total numbers, but what I was trying to say is that "active users in a year" has no meaning without the number of hours of usage.

I'm sure the MSFS team has the average number of hours the average user spends on MSFS as well but they didn't mention it in the presentation.

In any case, at the flight sim expo, Jorg mentioned how the MSFS team grew from 100 to 175 people working on it. And I believe there are 500 people working on MSFS 2024. I think Microsoft is seeing good revenue and profit from MSFS, if they are greenlightjng 500 people to work on MSFS 2024.

Edited February 8 by abrams_tank

[tpete61 228]

4 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

It has value for a lot of reasons. One reason is because it shows if MSFS is retaining its users. If the users return and remain active with MSFS, they are more likely to purchase add-ons in the MSFS marketplace.

 

90+% of the add-ons are garbage so these numbers mean nothing!

[flightskyc 257]

5 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

I have no idea why "numbers of users returning" has any value for statistics. Most people might have just done a flight in the F18 and quit MSFS again and went on to play something else.

Possibly one of the silliest comments ever.

Numbers of users returning is a very important metric. Why keep developing something if no-one returns?

Numbers of users returning, means less drop off at the top of the funnel and likely leads to more expenditure on the store also.

 

 

Edited February 8 by flightskyc

[flightskyc 257]

1 hour ago, tpete61 said:

90+% of the add-ons are garbage so these numbers mean nothing!

Different segments of the market won’t consider the store items rubbish. Users on this site might, but the average user probably won’t. Hence why there’s so many items in the store now.

if no one purchased anything, they wouldn’t be there!

[hansb57 493]

1 hour ago, tpete61 said:

90+% of the add-ons are garbage so these numbers mean nothing!

I ( f.i.) have no use for Navigraph, so I could say it's garbage. But if I see how many people feel it's an abosolute must.

I bought the air race add on but you can hardly ever find someone to race against. Yes, you can use discord to find a flight but that's to troublesome for me.

Is it garbage?  If you ask the players at the fs 2020 air racing group it seems they are having (or had) a blast.

 

 

[Bobsk8 12,753]

2 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

Because the "active users in a year" is a simple counter. Person accidentally opens MSFS? +1 active user, even if he never uses it again in that year.
What actually matters for marketplace sales is the amount of hours users play MSFS. Of course every "new" user is a potential long time user, but this percentage can vary wildly. I think only a very small percentage of MSFS users are regular users. 

"You  think"   That 's pretty scientific and totally devoid of any facts at all....

[Drumcode 1,893]

2 hours ago, DAD said:

Better 

 

than

 

hitting

 

enter

 

twice

Behave for crying out loud! 🤣

[lwt1971 7,420]

Without getting caught up in actual numbers it's more important I think to see the forest thru the trees as it were, to see the general trends around MSFS:

• healthy sustained usage numbers, including those returning (or adopting MSFS late) especially as the add-on aircraft scene has matured along with the default fleet and core sim
• the Navigraph surveys from the last two years that constitute the Serious Simmer ™️ crowd where MSFS is by far the top choice (over 70% in the 2023 survey) .. and 2022 to 2023 shows growth of that lead.
  • On a side note it's important to keep in mind when MS/Asobo gives us usage numbers it's the overall one, for users ranging from casual to serious and everyone in-between
• the business health and opportunity for add-on developers (pretty clear they're all doing well and raking it in, with many of them now having transitioned to develop exclusively for MSFS only)
• the continued health of MSFS 2020 despite the coming 2024 version, with MS/Asobo pouring resources into still improving 2020 continually, and even backporting 2024 features to it
• the expansion of the extended MSFS team, to recently doubling their size to 500+ with v2024 work ramping up (clear example of MS continuing to increase investment in the sim, surely due wholly or at least in part to the success of MSFS and its ecosystem)
• similarly the expansion and health of top tier add-on developers like PMDG, iniBuilds, etc (as they themselves have said)
• the expansion of the hobby as a whole due to MSFS
• expansion to new hardware platforms like XBox (and therefore new kinds of users) where high fidelity add-on developers have certainly seen success (i.e. FSReborn, PMDG, iniBuilds)
• the building up of, and showcasing of core MS tech like Azure cloud services, AI, Bing, etc which matter for wider and future applications other than for MSFS (but of course benefits MSFS due to MS profiting from all the tech stacks)
• etc etc

All of these really should come as no surprise to us by now. Bottom line, as discussed in the other thread now in Hangar chat whose poll tracks with all this, it is indeed a great time for flight simulation.. a genre which has been injected life and boosted by MSFS 2020, and about to take another leap with MSFS 2024 🙂
 

Edited February 8 by lwt1971

[sd_flyer 6,049]

I really don’t get this  constant chronic negativity of some users. If flight sim is your hobby, you probably want two things:  healthy competition and further development. It just make sense that any good statistics promote further development. 
 

 

[Krakin 5,775]

4 hours ago, F737MAX said:

If it's a consistent theme, absolutely. A one-off data point, meh...

Which chart do you think looks healthier?

^^A one-off 'highest monthly active users in over a year' vs. 'Mr Consistency'

The great news is MSFS is the second chart, chugging along nicely with steady figures. I'm not worried about resources being pulled or the game's servers being switched off anytime soon.

Woah! What flight sim is represented at the top???

[JBDB-MD80 1,473]

4 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

I really don’t get this  constant chronic negativity of some users. If flight sim is your hobby, you probably want two things:  healthy competition and further development. It just make sense that any good statistics promote further development. 
 

 

Let's just say there is more CaptainSim. LVFR. Bredok and other $$$ grabber developers on the MP out there than they're are Fenix, PMDG, A2A, JustFlight, FSR SWS etc. that want the piece of the MS pie. I would include Inibuilds but they have MS money already.  But if that is what MS/Asobo wants to boast about than so be it and I am sure the servers are flooded of multiplayer's on it.

Edited February 9 by JBDB-MD80

[abrams_tank 7,426]

6 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

It just make sense that any good statistics promote further development.

And I think the 3rd party developers do check the statistics. Not just from presentations like this, but also from the Navigraph survey. I think there was a question in the iniBuilds Discord asking why iniBuilds was so focused on MSFS. And one of the iniBuild developers cited the recent Navigraph survey charts, showing MSFS was the overwhelming market leader. So even iniBuilds is paying attention to stuff like the Navigraph survey when they make their decisions.