@turbomax

I know you already had difficulties understanding before, so let me help you out:

Let‘s take a look at the steams-statistics from Aug - Sept 2020. And compare them with today. Same on Twitch that had endless numbers of streamers in the first 2 weeks after release, many of them who never again streamed it.

So my question remains: how many of these 15 mio users are still actively (on a regular basis) using it?

1 hour ago, Franz007 said:

So my question remains: how many of these 15 mio users are still actively (on a regular basis) using it?

You seem to be a numbers guy.

230 million sessions the last six months (183 days). Figure out  a variable representing how many sessions an average simmer can manage per day.  Perhaps start with 3 sessions per day

Present your findings below.
 

I apologize to all readers if I intervene to ruin the party 🍹 but... honestly speaking... what do I care about the sales or usage statistics of a product?!? 
What do I care how much PMDG sells?
What do I care how much FF sells?
What do I care how many people play with product X or Y or Z?
In over 30 years of simulation no "advertising agent" has ever managed to convince me to use one product instead of another.
I fly with simulators that only I like.
I don't care in the least whether these simulators are highly or poorly advertised, or whether they are highly or poorly frequented by regular customers, or whether they sell a lot or a little.
If I were to listen to all this marketing nonsense then I should never fly with FS9 Simulator and Condor Soaring Simulator again.
Instead, I am one of the few pilots present on Avsim who in 2024 still flies with immense satisfaction with FS9, which, although this sim is old, sometimes manages to amaze me more than the mega-advertised XP12 and related statistics.

And in the end of this, no one can prove anything, its all based on some random numbers.

Exactly 👍

But above all..... what do I care about the statistics of how many people fly with X or Y? 😄
If someone wants to fly with the PMDG they will buy MSFS (or P3D) and fly with the PMDG.
Stop.
If someone wants to fly with FlighFactor they will buy XP11 or 12 and fly with FF.
Stop.

And then there are nostalgics like me who ALSO fly with FS9 because over the years it cost me a lot of money in addons, and rightly I still want to enjoy it in the face of the "statistics" that consider me an "i.d.i.o.t"  because I do not conform to advertising marketing. 😂

Edited June 26, 20241 yr by efis007

Sometimes it seems like there are a lot of shareholders out there. 😂
I may be a weird person, but I enjoy both MSFS and X-Plane. I think I'll wait to see which of the 777s I will buy. And the final decision will surely not be based in any 'market logic'.

54 minutes ago, efis007 said:

what do I care about the statistics of how many people fly with X or Y?

you may not care, most users do as market share and growth have tremendous significance for the future of a product. larger market share makes 3rd party developers shift their energy to where they can earn enough to make a living of their products, and to work full time for a certain platform. you may play FS9, Aerofly or whatever outdated sim you might have, but those have no significance for the development and improvement of future technology. and that is what most users want: ever more realistic simulation experience, and that is impossible without innovation, which in turn costs a lot of money.

Edited June 26, 20241 yr by turbomax

20 hours ago, brinx said:

Compared to a few years ago

If you truly loved flight simulation (as much as you think I don't), the time frame wouldn't matter. You'd recognize the miracle of any of this. Your statement reeks of fair-weather-fan.

 

20 hours ago, brinx said:

Evan said he was the one that initially reached out to MS

Warm fuzzies all around. They've been reaching out for years. Xbox conferences die out and suddenly 'sobo appears. Don't be fooled by the skin-suit it wears. Love for aviation and flight simulation is what turns Austin's gears. You fair-weather-fans are so full of fears. Rightfully so I suppose though; 'cause 'sobo can't even simulate the wheels on the ground.

 

20 hours ago, mjrhealth said:

@blingthinger I'm pretty sure, except for one, most of the floor walks never mentioned laminar or XP, so we know who's paying them.

Same money in this here website. Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

6 hours ago, Franz007 said:

Exactly, that‘s 0.8% of users…really huge.

Actually vg insights estimates 1.8million copies sold on steam

Which is 15% of steam users.

Doesn't account for xbox or played through game pass or bought direct from Microsoft.

At the end of the day, only Microsoft knows the correct numbers.  I think we can agree Microsoft has brought a large number of users to flight sims.

Xplane 12 steam numbers may look dismal, but a lot of people would have bought outside of steam.

At the end of the day I couldn't care less which one people play or who switches from on sim to another.  The more people into flight simming, as the end user we get better quality flight sims and addons.

9 hours ago, brinx said:

The support of VR is not quite there yet.

there's no directX VR support, its dead, microsoft completely killed it

Vulkan titles like X-Plane VR support is glorious and exploding and has been for a good few years now, as you can see with headsets like

https://varjo.com/press-release/varjo-releases-new-xr-4-series-to-deliver-mixed-reality-experiences-indistinguishable-from-natural-sight/

getting regular refreshes and price drops.

along with

https://varjo.com/case-studies/a-quantum-leap-in-xr-simulation-how-aechelon-and-varjo-are-shaping-the-future-of-fighter-jet-pilot-training/

Seems like Varjo weren't at fsexpo2024?

9 hours ago, brinx said:

in order to boost low VR sales.

Aces of thunder seems to be delayed (was supposed to be out now afaik), that on top of GT5 will be enough to break records I'm sure.

9 hours ago, brinx said:

I would assume PlayStation has a similar feature.

Maybe the PS5 does, PS4 didn't, generally it would be 30 mins to an hour of PS updating when it was switched on, then another 30 mins to an hour for whatever game to update. after a few months of not using it because of that, the renewal came due and I didn't.

10 hours ago, brinx said:

moving to add support for PSVR on PC

PSVR2 is technically the best headset for flight simmers right now, by quite a margin, eye tracking for $500, omfg), this really can't come soon enough - All that stuff about exposure fusion in the platform update becomes moot as soon as we get that.

Lot of uncertainty around support (linux or bust) and timing, but if they do it right I can easily see myself with at least two of them in the coming years, one for the PC and one for the PS5.

On February 22, 2024, Sony announced that PC support will be coming to PlayStation VR2 in August 2024.

In June 2024, Sony was reported to cut back on game development for the headset, effectively bringing PSVR 2 support to a close.

In June 2024, The Verge wrote "I regret buying the PSVR 2". DigitalTrend's reporter stated his unit was "collecting dust".Tom's Guide stated "PSVR 2 future looks pretty bleak".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_VR2

Edited June 27, 20241 yr by turbomax

6 hours ago, turbomax said:

Ouch. so "in general" user figures are less than Steam stats x3, first time I've seen anyone "leak" evidence on that ratio, I thought it was much higher.

That's pretty depressing, just need to glance at

https://steamcharts.com/app/381210

https://steamcharts.com/app/236390

https://steamcharts.com/app/1250410

https://steamcharts.com/app/2014780

to see how depressing.

I just watched some FSExpo walk around footage - seemed empty? more people in booths than visiting them, claps at the presentations were also underwhelming......

Everyone really needs to do more to bring people in to flight sim......

7 hours ago, turbomax said:

230 million in just the last 6 months

That sounds like a lot, but its not really, its an average of  1.2 million "flight sessions" a day (182 days), divide by 3 to get 420,000 flight sessions on steam, with 6200 users at any one time, means each steam flight session only lasted about 20 minutes - at most 420,000 users on any one day, if they each only have one 20 minute flight session - in total a couple of million active users, same as my last estimate a couple years ago.....

 

47 minutes ago, turbomax said:

On February 22, 2024, Sony announced that PC support will be coming to PlayStation VR2 in August 2024.

In June 2024, Sony was reported to cut back on game development for the headset, effectively bringing PSVR 2 support to a close.

In June 2024, The Verge wrote "I regret buying the PSVR 2". DigitalTrend's reporter stated his unit was "collecting dust".Tom's Guide stated "PSVR 2 future looks pretty bleak".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_VR2

VR haters are fairly hilarious tbh, they've been saying its dead for over a decade now, more now XBOX is sooooo far behind, that they gave up and handed sony 100% of that market for the foreseeable future, the reality is much more along the lines of:

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/ps-vr2/games/

Its quite possibly also patent related e.g. the eye tracking, if so it it could well be 25 years before microsoft can compete in that market..... (unless they can find a forth way to do eye tracking, and do so conpetitively)

Edited June 27, 20241 yr by mSparks

4 hours ago, blingthinger said:

If you truly loved flight simulation (as much as you think I don't), the time frame wouldn't matter. You'd recognize the miracle of any of this. Your statement reeks of fair-weather-fan.

I'm talking about the renewed interest in-flight simulation over the last several years. Yes, it's being led by Microsoft. And? Hardware manufacturers are jumping back in and are giving excellent products at each turn. This year's FSExpo was the largest one yet. A true flight simulator fan would be happy but instead you are ticked off about Microsoft's attendance.

 

4 hours ago, blingthinger said:

Warm fuzzies all around. They've been reaching out for years. Xbox conferences die out and suddenly 'sobo appears. Don't be fooled by the skin-suit it wears. Love for aviation and flight simulation is what turns Austin's gears. You fair-weather-fans are so full of fears. Rightfully so I suppose though; 'cause 'sobo can't even simulate the wheels on the ground.

I really don't know what you are talking about. What conference died out? If you mean E3, that was not a xbox conference. The big 3, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft each hold their own events each year now. Xbox's was June 9th. Evan said that they reached out to Microsoft and invited them. Even if they had decided to attend on their own, so what? It is a FlightSim Expo for everything related. Yet here you are continuing to spew this nonsense about canceled conferences. 

Austin loves aviation, I already know that. The man did create x-plane after all. What else is new? You seem worked up because of your loyalty to one sim.

I on the other hand, I'm very happy about the revival leading to things like: 

 

 

Edited June 27, 20241 yr by brinx

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

there's no directX VR support, its dead, microsoft completely killed it

As I said in my previous post, they are not interested in VR at the moment. They spoke on the issue, and said they are waiting for the technology to advance further.

 

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

Lot of uncertainty around support (linux or bust) and timing, but if they do it right I can easily see myself with at least two of them in the coming years, one for the PC and one for the PS5.

I know you like VR and I do too, but until the technology improves (lighter headsets etc.), it will not see widespread adoption. VR is not selling well at the moment unfortunately. PSVR is adding PC support to help boost sale.