Highest actively monthly user number in over a year for MSFS

[sd_flyer 6,073]

2 hours ago, JBDB-MD80 said:

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.

There are Mac Donals and there are 4- star Steak House but they are both part of food chain. Do you think when prospective student pilot walking in the door, he is some kind of sophisticated hardcore simmer? Nope! Just an average Joe who doesn't know a thing about aviation and may be played once or twice console arcade airplane. But he wants to learn and that what is matter.

The bottom line if only hardcore simmers feed aviation training industry most of us CFI would be out of job! LOL I'm not joking!

[Lonesome Cowboy Burt 168]

This sort of thinly disguised marketing actually has the opposite to intended affect on me.

Its not just disinterest it actually instills a negative feeling. I must be odd.

[MarcG 3,025]

It's for the corporates and shareholders to get a kick out of, knowing they'll get their bonus.

[lwt1971 7,446]

7 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

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.

Absolutely.. as a few devs have themselves said on these forums, surveys such as Navigraph's and sales numbers/insights like these from MS (I'm sure MS gives the 3rd part devs more details) are all vital to guiding where the 3PDs invest in and focus on. Of course nothing like seeing their own sales #s to drive such decisions. Even prior to MSFS we used to hear a lot about how the 3PDs pay close attention to surveys like Navigraph's.
 

Quote

There are Mac Donals and there are 4- star Steak House but they are both part of food chain. Do you think when prospective student pilot walking in the door, he is some kind of sophisticated hardcore simmer? Nope! Just an average Joe who doesn't know a thing about aviation and may be played once or twice console arcade airplane. But he wants to learn and that what is matter.

Couldn't agree more! Yes there are lots of low-fidelity and "unworthy for serious simming" add-ons out there, but so what.. there are a plethora of high fidelity add-ons too where we're now spoiled for choice. The former doesn't detract from the latter, and in fact like you say they all contribute towards the overall health of the ecosystem which then ultimately benefits all of us users, however serious or casual we are with the hobby.
 

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It's for the corporates and shareholders to get a kick out of, knowing they'll get their bonus.

They can get  their kicks and bonuses, what matters to me is that they also keep pouring investment into the sim and add-ons, expanding their teams, etc that then means goodness for us 🙂 (as MS/Asobo, PMDG, iniBuilds, and various other devs are doing).
 

[Krakin 5,810]

People ought to know that all that salt is bad for their health!

[Rimshot 1,157]

Here we go again...

[Christopher Low 5,376]

Talking of investment in MSFS and addons......will there be a Valentine's Day (or weekend) sale? I have an itchy trigger finger

Edited February 9 by Christopher Low

[kerosene31 349]

MSFS 2020 brought me back to this hobby.  I am a long time simmer, back to the early days of MSFS, MicroProse combat sims, Fly!, Flight Unlimited, X-Plane, etc. 

A couple of years before MSFS 2020, I was pretty much done with simming.  I had flown FSX as much as I could (could never get that sim to run smooth no matter how much hardware I threw at it).  I moved to X-Plane and really enjoyed it for awhile, but ultimately things just got stale for me.  Flying VFR over generic landclass from any of the older sims was just not very engaging for me.  Eventually my spare time just went to different things. 

Fast forward to MSFS 2020 and not only does it look great, but runs great on realistic hardware.  I had to pull my old joysticks and rudder pedals out of old boxes and give it a try. 

So, this brought me back to the hobby and helped me rediscover that passion.  (so, that's a big negative for the rest of you!).  I'm trying to get the hang of helicopters now flying around the New York city area and it is just something that I never experienced in past versions.  I fly over the scenery and see something interesting and I swap to my phone to look what that really is. 

If MSFS 2020 is for "casuals", then I guess I'm a casual, because I'm having tons of fun. 

[JBDB-MD80 1,480]

3 hours ago, Krakin said:

People ought to know that all that salt is bad for their health!

Actually I have salt in my diet as I am kind of athletic and cramp up a bunch 50+. Even at my age. But carry on with the cheerleading. Fact is I love MSFS but its is far from perfect but there are alternatives that will not extinct. 

Edited February 9 by JBDB-MD80

[Krakin 5,810]

20 hours ago, JBDB-MD80 said:

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.

The first and second best seller spots (Gross Revenue) are taken by two PMDG planes on the MP. Although FSR's FSR500 came out a lot later, it is already in the top 50 and JustFlight's 146 is sitting at 13th place. Keep in mind that the Marketplace has thousands of products available. Fenix is not on the MP and A2A released their comanche there only this week. The point you're trying to make is not very sharp. ALL of the devs you mentioned are doing fantastic on the MSFS platform wether they're releasing tripe or gems.

[JBDB-MD80 1,480]

17 minutes ago, Krakin said:

The first and second best seller spots (Gross Revenue) are taken by two PMDG planes on the MP. Although FSR's FSR500 came out a lot later, it is already in the top 50 and JustFlight's 146 is sitting at 13th place. Keep in mind that the Marketplace has thousands of products available. Fenix is not on the MP and A2A released their comanche there only this week. The point you're trying to make is not very sharp. ALL of the devs you mentioned are doing fantastic on the MSFS platform wether they're releasing tripe or gems.

Listen here sir Krakin (with no disrespect) not going to argue any more MSFS seems to be doing well on the MP an on XBOX and the most engaged (E-entertainment) sim on a consumer platform. But there is other options out there for a backup for actually flight training and I am not on that level yet. Is this is not what a flight sim supposed to achive in the first place?

Edited February 10 by JBDB-MD80

[Krakin 5,810]

19 minutes ago, JBDB-MD80 said:

But there is other options out there for a backup for actually flight training and I am not on that level yet.

I don't understand the bolded part but that doesn't sound like it has anything to do with what I told you anyway.

[Ricardo41 5,958]

I have no idea why people keep arguing - using mostly meaningless statistics - the very simple fact that MSFS is probably the most successful flight simulator ever published. It has generated  a massive eco-system of high to highest quality freeware, and is, even after 3 and a half years is being continuously upgraded and improved by Asobo and Microsoft. 

In addition, it has DEFAULT avionics that are, thanks to the work of WT,as close to "study level" as you can possibly get without breaking the bank.

Everything else completely pales in comparison. 

Is it perfect. Far from it. For example, the ATC is pretty much useless. 

So let's cut Asobo some slack. If not, kindly point me towards a flight simulator that does more than what MSFS does. 

Edited February 10 by Ricardo41

[Lonesome Cowboy Burt 168]

1 hour ago, jarmstro said:

The stats posted earlier in the thread are interesting. If user numbers are a measure of quality then I have to conclude that MS2020 is absolute garbage compared to Baldur's Gate 3. 

(Actually, it is! 😁)

 

Good point.

MSFS is the big fish in a very small barrel and just as I never look at an FPS counter  I'll leave the celebratory recounting of statistics that prove it's dominance to others. I just enjoy the sim (it is very good)

 

 

 

[abrams_tank 7,445]

On 2/9/2024 at 5:36 AM, lwt1971 said:

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 🙂
 

Very well said! I think the XBox users were under-counted in the last Navigraph survey and when Simbol disclosed the percentage of his sales that came from XBox, it was a much higher percentage than percentage of XBox users in the Navigraph survey. So 3rd party developers that are able to sell on both the PC side and XBox side for MSFS, stand to make a lot more money than they originally imagined if it was just the PC market alone.

I think the A2A Comanche will also sell quite well on XBox, now that they got it released for XBox.  If MSFS 2024 is a huge success (and of course, that's an "if"), I can see MSFS 2024 becoming even more attractive to develop for 3rd party developers.