April 2024 Asobo Developer Livestream

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 542]

I have an impression that even the simple issue of Historical Weather “wasn't understood” by these gentlemen. “How does anyone want to use that?” I think was the question one of them said...

[wim123 763]

10 hours ago, Fielder said:

700 people at Asobo, Microsoft, and others working on MSFS. I never understood that. $50,000 salary per year times 700 is 35 million USD a year. Seems like that would not leave much room for profit.

seems to me everyone here misses the point..its about gamepass, having succesfull games in the gamepass makes

people stay on, how many millions have that pass? i dont know but i bet they have at least 100 miliion a month from that.

also about not knowing about bugs...in such big projects often the lefthand (managers) do not seem to know what the righthand (workers) do or know.   me as a worker have had first hand experience of that fact....i found it often really amasing the lack of

knowledge of the project the management  has, but they decide what is going to happen.

we can only hope that msfs2024 is indeed better in some respects.

[Funky D 275]

11 hours ago, MarcG said:

...why waste those resources on further improving 2024 and go back to 2020 next year when no doubt a vast majority would've moved on?

Without backporting certain changes, photogrammetry will likely break eventually, along with product updates in the marketplace. And then you'll have a handful of people screaming bloody murder on every social media platform about how they spent $60 four years ago and bought a bunch of addons in the marketplace and its unacceptable for MS to drop support blah blah blah.

I would assume updates for existing 2020 addons will be released on both the 2020 and 2024 marketplace if the 3rd party dev desires, as it wouldn't make sense for MS/Asobo to maintain two update approval channels.

[abrams_tank 7,426]

34 minutes ago, wim123 said:

seems to me everyone here misses the point..its about gamepass, having succesfull games in the gamepass makes

people stay on, how many millions have that pass? i dont know but i bet they have at least 100 miliion a month from that.

also about not knowing about bugs...in such big projects often the lefthand (managers) do not seem to know what the righthand (workers) do or know.   me as a worker have had first hand experience of that fact....i found it often really amasing the lack of

knowledge of the project the management  has, but they decide what is going to happen.

we can only hope that msfs2024 is indeed better in some respects.

About Gamepass though, if MSFS doesn't bring in the revenue and users to offset what they spend on developing and running MSFS, they are better spending that money elsewhere.  For example, should Microsoft spend another $30 USD million on MSFS if it only gets Microsoft another $30 million in revenue, or should Microsoft spend the $30 million adding a popular game to Gamepass, that would bring in $60 million in revenue for them? All things being equal, Microsoft would choose the second scenario, where spending $30 million on a different game would bring in $60 million in revenue for them.

So it's not like Microsoft has an endless budget to spend on MSFS. And to be honest, flight simulation is not all that popular among gamers.  Flight simulation is still a niche in the video game industry.

Fortunately for us, Microsoft is seeing the revenue from MSFS, to justify spending all the money they are spending on making MSFS 2024 (and also all the free stuff we have gotten in MSFS 2020, and the continued development of MSFS 2020).  My guess is, while the number of users for MSFS is a lot fewer than other video games, the spend per user is very, very high. There are people buying hundreds of dollars worth of products from the MSFS marketplace (probably some people spending over a thousand dollars in the MSFS marketplace). To me, MSFS 2024 is a very positive development, it shows that the business model is working for Microsoft. And in return, because the business model is working for Microsoft, we are getting yet another next generation flight simulator, that is pushing the boundaries of what modern technology can do for flight simulation (prior to MSFS, the flight simulators being used in the home market were definitely not pushing the limits of what modern technology can do for flight simulation).

[UAL4life 239]

1 hour ago, Juliett Alfa Romeo said:

I have an impression that even the simple issue of Historical Weather “wasn't understood” by these gentlemen. “How does anyone want to use that?” I think was the question one of them said...

That’s how it’s always been. They are very confused and disconnected from the community in a lot of areas. 

[bobcat999 8,489]

I laughed out loud in disbelief when is was said about 700 people are working on the project, with 200 on the core team at Asobo. 
Really?  What are that many people producing then? I don't see output from 700 people.
If there are, they must be working part time one hour per day, with just one on the bug fixing, and another one reading their own forums for about one minute per week.  

Like I said earlier, the response to the long running tiling issues in DX11 / DX12 was appalling. 
I am glad that they got called out in the live questions over their response to this, even though it did seem to upset Jorg.
I am just worried about Jayne's job now after she wouldn't let the issue go, as it did seem to rattle them - but good on her!

In one fleeting instant, it shows they can't take the community loyalty for granted.

As for the comments on 'why waste time on 2020', I think it is obvious they won't now. 
The next SU is in 2025 (which I find unbelievable with all the current outstanding issues), and any other improvements will be back ported from MSFS 2024 (only where they can), which costs them next to nothing.

I think it is clear to see where their focus lies now (they basically admitted it in this twitch session), so I can only hope we are going to see MSFS2024 earlier than expected, or at least not delayed past August / September.

[F737MAX 5,677]

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

Microsoft is seeing the revenue from MSFS, to justify spending all the money they are spending on making MSFS 2024

Possibly, although I noted from elsewhere that: 

"Professional certification is not decided yet for MSFS 2024, but ‘experimentation’ is ongoing."

There's a reason why the more complex details (e.g. Garmin units) are being added to the platform and the expense incurred of creating a digital twin Earth. And it isn't for 'casual gamers' on Xbox.

[fsiscool 251]

13 hours ago, MarcG said:

again why?! They're a business, surely they want to sell the new product, they're losing potential sales by updating old software. Seems they class this as an operating system when in reality it's a game!

Maybe they want to keep the lights on because they'd like to continue to milk those who stay on MSFS2020 via marketplace sales?

Maybe they anticipate that the two sims address somewehat different markets or audiences, so more users than we assume would stay on 2020?

Edited April 25 by fsiscool

[MarcG 3,021]

38 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

I am glad that they got called out in the live questions over their response to this, even though it did seem to upset Jorg.

Good, maybe now he can understand our frustrations with seeing the same issues year on year and never getting fixed.

[fsiscool 251]

39 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

Really?  What are that many people producing then? I don't see output from 700 people.

That is because you are underestimating the complexity of developing a software like MSFS rather than using it. At least that mistake Jorg is not making.

[abrams_tank 7,426]

45 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

Possibly, although I noted from elsewhere that: 

"Professional certification is not decided yet for MSFS 2024, but ‘experimentation’ is ongoing."

There's a reason why the more complex details (e.g. Garmin units) are being added to the platform and the expense incurred of creating a digital twin Earth. And it isn't for 'casual gamers' on Xbox.

I have always said Microsoft would go after the commercial market at some point. Here is a thread I created back in 2022:

 

[abrams_tank 7,426]

47 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

Possibly, although I noted from elsewhere that: 

"Professional certification is not decided yet for MSFS 2024, but ‘experimentation’ is ongoing."

There's a reason why the more complex details (e.g. Garmin units) are being added to the platform and the expense incurred of creating a digital twin Earth. And it isn't for 'casual gamers' on Xbox.

I have always said Microsoft would go after the commercial market at some point. I just posted a link to a past thread I made in 2022 where I brought this subject up, about Microsoft going after the commercial market. Avsim made my post "hidden" for whatever reason. But yeah, even back in 2022, I speculated that Microsoft will target the commercial market.

[abrams_tank 7,426]

53 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

I laughed out loud in disbelief when is was said about 700 people are working on the project, with 200 on the core team at Asobo. 
Really?  What are that many people producing then? I don't see output from 700 people.
If there are, they must be working part time one hour per day, with just one on the bug fixing, and another one reading their own forums for about one minute per week.  

For sure, some of them are working part-time on MSFS. There is no way 700 people are working on MSFS full time, for the entire year.  And probably when MSFS 2024 comes out, the number of people working on MSFS will be reduced drastically.

[bobcat999 8,489]

26 minutes ago, fsiscool said:

That is because you are underestimating the complexity of developing a software like MSFS rather than using it. At least that mistake Jorg is not making.

OK.  Well as long as you are happy with the output (particularly bug fixing and sim updates) from all those people, who am I to argue?  I bow to your superior knowledge on these matters.

[Lonesome Cowboy Burt 164]

49 minutes ago, fsiscool said:

That is because you are underestimating the complexity of developing a software like MSFS rather than using it. At least that mistake Jorg is not making.

You know what they say about statistics, Id love to see what criteria they use to define "working on"