3 hours ago, Franz007 said:

a huge money-grab-machine compared to XP12

Well, even with reasonable data its hard to get a good estimate, but the key difference is "there is a lot more to commercial flight simulation than buying a $1k flight simulator and clicking install" P3D had that, MS doesn't. XP for sure picked up all the slack.

3 hours ago, Franz007 said:

237k

Thats like what? 3000 $80 sales? wont include the 777 and the 737 launched several years ago, cant say its right, but seems reasonable. I was looking more at the fall in FTE.. Pre MSFS there was about 20 of them, now that says 8, thats not much to go around 8 people - and developing for MS needs a team that size because so much needs doing from scratch.

They absolutely have not grown off the back of MS, and if they have been struggling what chance has any one else got? I dont think most had any choice but to sign up on MS salary.

XP has had big launches from Tolis and Flight Factor recently, They seem to be doing well, Tolis were big if not the sponsors for the XP dev conference in Feb

Trying not to wander of topic... The hottest topic there was the incoming XP in sim store, last q&a a week or two ago reports that as expected later this year, I'm sure that will end up the go to place for much of what you could get from the dashboard, even if just from the product reviews, plus much more besides.

4 hours ago, mSparks said:

MS may still have more users, but nothing seems to suggest they are spending much beyond the initial sim purchase. Those are some stats I would love to see.

They released quite a bit of numbers regarding the in-game marketplace sales during FSExpo.

5 hours ago, mSparks said:

Not sure how much truth there is in that. The biggest fear I'm "feeling" from devs with an MSFS income is deep concern that msfs2024 will kill off their ms income completely

Why would it kill off income? If anything, it would pull in more users and sales for addons priced correctly.  I hear teams like IniBuilds have grown to 50+. Working Title's team is 20-30, PMDG hiring and expanding, and others as well.  I think there will be infinite possibilities for add-ons, if developers are allowed to create missions that are integrated with GA plane. Scenery outside of airport is dead though.

 

21 hours ago, jcomm said:

But life is surely not easy for XP developers and consumer market. Probably LR isn't that much concerned because they have their own fixed / professional market to feed their salaries, but for developers that rely mainly on X-Plane I'm sure it's getting difficult to keep the business running 😞

I agree. Bigger players like FF or Toliss may be okay. But for smaller devs, return on investment is a concern.  I've seen that sentiment being expressed already. 

13 hours ago, Franz007 said:

Well, as Janov (working for Laminar) just stated today on the org (and many of us already knew), XP’s users actually increased since MSFS came out, because some of them switch to XP or at least try it out. It’s fantastic that MSFS could increase the Flightsim-community that much and helps XP growing as well.

The sim market has grown exponentially, but so has the cost of development due to economics and expectations. Is the growth large enough to offset additional cost for smaller developers? I'm not sure. Expectations are now sky high now(e.g fully modeled airport interiors are expected by most).

3 hours ago, mSparks said:

Well, even with reasonable data its hard to get a good estimate, but the key difference is "there is a lot more to commercial flight simulation than buying a $1k flight simulator and clicking install" P3D had that, MS doesn't. XP for sure picked up all the slack.

I tried to read many times but don’t understand what you exactly mean. 1000$ flightsim? I was just pointing out to the fact that for MSFS probably way more users will buy payware-airport-sceneries than they will for XP. So I would estimate that the money spent into MSFS is much higher than what is spent for XP.

3 hours ago, mSparks said:

Thats like what? 3000 $80 sales? wont include the 777 and the 737 launched several years ago, cant say its right, but seems reasonable

It’s for sure not even close to realistic. They sold like 3000 copies per minute or something like that for MSFS. And before that they covered the P3D/FSX market (and even having the DC6 for XP). So I cannot imagine that they would have sold only 3000 copies.

And 20 FTE’s for 237k income also makes no sense. That would mean a salary of 12’000$/year per person. And that doesn’t even include the fix costs etc. So this numbers seem completely wrong in my opinion.

Edited September 24, 20241 yr by Franz007

1 hour ago, brinx said:

The sim market has grown exponentially, but so has the cost of development due to economics and expectations. Is the growth large enough to offset additional cost for smaller developers? I'm not sure. Expectations are now sky high now(e.g fully modeled airport interiors are expected by most).

That’s a good question. What I noticed is that there are many very small payware-airports being released that I would say 99.9% of users are not interested in. And I am not talking about the fact that some of those don’t look that much better than the default one. I very much doubt that well modelled big or popular airports like FlyTampa Amsterdam hasn’t great sales. Because the most used an airport is in the sim, the more important it is to have it good modelled (=payware).

And if you want my honest opinion, the trend to model the interiors is the biggest joke ever. It’s so unnecessary and I cannot imagine that missing interiors would prevent any users of purchasing it.

Edited September 24, 20241 yr by Franz007

1 hour ago, Franz007 said:

1000$ flightsim?

https://www.x-plane.com/pro/

A good portion of XP devs sell and work with customers purchasing that. Many dont even release their stuff to the public.

3 hours ago, brinx said:

Why would it kill off income?

For a start, many flight simmers are about to spend up to $300 [and above] on 2024 - that's generally their flight sim budget for a year or two, so, similar to what happened with the release of 2020, for the next couple of years hardly anyone is going to be buying any addon stuff, then those that dont switch to Xplane, what are they going to buy? the MS gateway is looking like it will offer very high quality airports, MS already has a solid fleet of aircraft, MSFS2020 devs are already in the "long tail" of sales, and 2020 aircraft will work with 2024, so no need for anyone to buy them again.

Hence "deep concern" from those more reliant on income from MS.

1 hour ago, Franz007 said:

They sold like 3000 copies per minute or something like that for MSFS.

Typical for any "long awaited" release, I'm sure Flight Factor experience very similar for their 777 - that tells you nothing about what the sales will be in 2 years time, let alone 3 or 4. 3000 sales per year in flight sim 4 years post launch is good - 4% of everyone active on MSFS steam every month.

1 hour ago, Franz007 said:

And 20 FTE’s for 237k income also makes no sense.

it was 20 employees on several million prior to the release of MSFS2020, now it is 8 (or maybe 4....) on ~$250, There business model very very much targeted at hitting XBOX users - but XBOX has been a massive flop - especially for PMDG - and even on windows there is only a few thousands active users across all aircraft - "only" about two or three times as many as X-Plane for 100 times the amount of work.

3 hours ago, brinx said:

I hear teams like IniBuilds have grown to 50+

Those are on MS salary afaik, for now,

MSFS is very much budgeted as a loss leader for gamepass. The whole reason 2024 exists was they found 2020 uncompetitive vs XPlane. Very much remains to be seen if 2024 will be - I doubt it tbh, not seen anything that exciting and a lot of basics still broken in what they have shown to people so far.

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

For a start, many flight simmers are about to spend up to $300 [and above] on 2024 - that's generally their flight sim budget for a year or two, so, similar to what happened with the release of 2020, for the next couple of years hardly anyone is going to be buying any addon stuff, then those that dont switch to Xplane, what are they going to buy?

I'm not really sure about your logic. Anyone spending $300+ on a flight sim is NOT concerned with budget. In fact, I would bet these users would be more likely to spend more on addons.

 

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

it was 20 employees on several million prior to the release of MSFS2020, now it is 8 (or maybe 4....) on ~$250, There business model very very much targeted at hitting XBOX users - but XBOX has been a massive flop - especially for PMDG

PMDG has been one of the most successful devs in MSFS. In one of their posts after the 777 was released, they mentioned that they spent $300,000 on server infrastructure previously and had to invest even more. Even with all the preparation, the infrastructure crashed under load while doing 6000 over 3 min. They have 2 737 that are listed as a platinum sellers (2023) in the in-game store, meaning they are among the top 12 in terms of revenue. The fact that you think they are struggling is hilarious.

20 hours ago, mSparks said:

Not sure how much truth there is in that. The biggest fear I'm "feeling" from devs with an MSFS income is deep concern that msfs2024 will kill off their ms income completely, especially once its dupe of the gateway goes live. Embrace, Extend Extinguish...

MS may still have more users, but nothing seems to suggest they are spending much beyond the initial sim purchase. Those are some stats I would love to see.

MSFS' gateway isn't going to be much of an issue for its scenery market. No matter how large their assortment of generic objects will be, it just won't compare to a custom tailored scenery where every building and crack in the pavement looks like it's supposed to.

Considering the sheer amount of payware out there, market saturation is going to be the biggest threat. Customers only have so much money to dish out and so only much time to make use of their purchases. So the technical bar will have to be raised to generate substantial interest at increased development cost, resulting in higher prices, resulting in less sales, resulting in net losses, resulting in market exits, etc.

 

16 hours ago, strider1 said:

The problem with XP is the development is way too slow. When I look out the window below, I still see terrible graphics from 2011. I know, I know, they are working on next gen scenery.

I emailed Austin some time ago about some quality of life improvements for VR. He ignored most of my comments and asked me to prove one of my points (The Star Trek Warp Speed effect). After some back and forth, he finally capitulated. Fast-forward to today, and none of my suggestions have been addressed. But It gets worse because now I noticed a big hand instead of a mouse pointer in VR. Which makes it almost impossible to program the avionics. Instead of dialing in KVNY as a destination in the FMS, I incorrectly click on the wrong letters. A couple of minutes later I am still trying to dial in KVNY, and now I am nose diving into the ground 🙃 Good times 🤩

Sigh, I give up. 

Faster development is something I desire, too, but we both know that one bad build is enough to produce a mob with foaming mouths and pitchforks and torches in hand calling for Ben Supnik's head. And I think that's the reason why Laminar is taking things fairly slowly. Besides, they have to make everything work on three operating systems and a variety of hardware configurations.

(And please no "ditch Linux and Mac support" now, otherwise I'll be the one man mob with a foaming mouth and pitchfork and torch in hand calling for your head. 😉 Besides, Linux and Mac is Laminar's niche with near absolute market domination.)

As for VR, I've given up after weeks of fruitlessly messing around. X-Plane is just not there yet and it's going to be a very long while until it is. Headtracking all the way.

 

5 hours ago, Franz007 said:

And if you want my honest opinion, the trend to model the interiors is the biggest joke ever. It’s so unnecessary and I cannot imagine that missing interiors would prevent any users of purchasing it.

Depends. If it's a small terminal at a regional field that you get up close to when boarding/deboarding, an interor may add a certain something. Same when it's huge, but basically a glass house that lets through sunlight. But the average concrete block doesn't profit from an interior, yes.

2 hours ago, brinx said:

I'm not really sure about your logic.

There is two sources of funds coming in to flight sim.

nearly all the money that goes into msfs2024 is money that would have gone into flight sim addons if there was no msfs2024. With 45 high def aircraft and 100 airports, by salaried experienced devs, and everyone already owning aircraft available for msfs that they want but it doesnt ship with, that is going to be a huge hit on the entire market. People have already been stopping buying MSFS addons in anticipation of its release, that wont come back until their wallets have money in again and they are bored with the base sim, MS piled hundreds of millions of dollars into trying to not let them get bored for as long as possible.

The second source is those completely new to flight sim - they dont expect to even buy addons, maybe drop a few dollars on a livery or two.

There is technically a third - the group that put PHNL on the map in the OP, but let's not look behind that curtain.

2 hours ago, brinx said:

PMDG has been one of the most successful devs in MSFS.

Completely agree.

And even for them MSFS has been nothing short of an absolute disaster financially, with them needing to cut more than half their headcount.

Companies like Honeycomb weren't so fortunate.

Now, someone was saying msfs is where the money is... So 4 years in where are the Austin Meyer's or Peter Vesterbaka's of MSFS or even just anything for windows?

And why should they get any new details on what makes XPlane so successful?

Edited September 24, 20241 yr by mSparks

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

And even for them MSFS has been nothing short of an absolute disaster financially

What? You just completely ignored everything I said pointing to how financially successful PMDG has been with both the 737/777 and went back to "financial disaster" talking point. Believe as you wish 😁.

1 hour ago, brinx said:

What? You just completely ignored everything I said pointing to how financially successful PMDG has been with both the 737/777 and went back to "financial disaster" talking point. Believe as you wish 😁.

You believe whatever you want to talk yourself into believing, I'll stick with believing the accounts they filed with the US government, unless you have something more authoritative and/or more likely to be true.

I already stated that it did not include the 777 sales since the accounts are from 2023.

plus the topic is very much if and why LR or anyone should provide more data to correct these misconceptions, tbh, all you seem to be proving is very few would really understand it even if they did.

13 hours ago, brinx said:

They released quite a bit of numbers regarding the in-game marketplace sales during FSExpo.

3700 products sold an average of 270 copies each over 4 years.

I see why you didn't give numbers for that Cash Cow 🤣

Edited September 25, 20241 yr by mSparks

7 hours ago, Bjoern said:

As for VR, I've given up after weeks of fruitlessly messing around. X-Plane is just not there yet and it's going to be a very long while until it is. Headtracking all the way.

I threw my Head-tracker in the trash after purchasing the CL. There is no going back to a 2D monitor. I had my 80-year mom simming in the CL the other day, she was blown away and did not want to take it off 🤪 I am surprised that only 10-15% of the simming enthusiast are using VR.

18 hours ago, Franz007 said:

And if you want my honest opinion, the trend to model the interiors is the biggest joke ever. It’s so unnecessary and I cannot imagine that missing interiors would prevent any users of purchasing it.

Yep, I just don't get this and why people want it. It's now become expected on even small GA airfields for some reason but yet people still want the same prices as airports before this became common-place.

3 hours ago, tonywob said:

Yep, I just don't get this and why people want it. It's now become expected on even small GA airfields for some reason but yet people still want the same prices as airports before this became common-place.

I think the simplest answer is competition and better hardware.  Competition leads to better products for the consumer, as is the case with MSFS vs Xplane. If an add-on developer would like their products to stand out from the competition, one way is to create an interior. It is certainly not necessary but given the choice between 2 similar quality products, the majority would purchase the one with the interior. As a result, it is starting to become common place now. I'm sure many probably felt cabin were not needed initially, and now cabins are pretty much standard in all planes even though we spend our time in the cockpits.

Airport interior is just the beginning IMHO, I think we are heading in the direction where it is not just about flying a plane from point A to B, but about the entire experience as a pilot for those that choose to do so. Pilot Simulator?  So, this includes the preflight, passengers boarding, flight, post flight. I saw a streamer landing at an airport a few months back where the passengers deboarded, walked to baggage claim before exiting the airport.

Some may say all of this is unnecessary of course. I would argue lots of things are unnecessary including fuel trucks, baggage truck, deicing vehicles, etc. We have them however because they add to the immersion. 

The downside is that as we get more capable hardware, development has become prohibitively more expensive for many studios as we ask for better graphics and more immersive worlds to take advantage of our new shiny hardware. 

22 hours ago, mSparks said:

For a start, many flight simmers are about to spend up to $300 [and above] on 2024 - that's generally their flight sim budget for a year or two, so, similar to what happened with the release of 2020, for the next couple of years hardly anyone is going to be buying any addon stuff, then those that dont switch to Xplane, what are they going to buy? the MS gateway is looking like it will offer very high quality airports, MS already has a solid fleet of aircraft, MSFS2020 devs are already in the "long tail" of sales, and 2020 aircraft will work with 2024, so no need for anyone to buy them again.

Hence "deep concern" from those more reliant on income from MS.

Typical for any "long awaited" release, I'm sure Flight Factor experience very similar for their 777 - that tells you nothing about what the sales will be in 2 years time, let alone 3 or 4. 3000 sales per year in flight sim 4 years post launch is good - 4% of everyone active on MSFS steam every month.

it was 20 employees on several million prior to the release of MSFS2020, now it is 8 (or maybe 4....) on ~$250, There business model very very much targeted at hitting XBOX users - but XBOX has been a massive flop - especially for PMDG - and even on windows there is only a few thousands active users across all aircraft - "only" about two or three times as many as X-Plane for 100 times the amount of work.

Those are on MS salary afaik, for now,

MSFS is very much budgeted as a loss leader for gamepass. The whole reason 2024 exists was they found 2020 uncompetitive vs XPlane. Very much remains to be seen if 2024 will be - I doubt it tbh, not seen anything that exciting and a lot of basics still broken in what they have shown to people so far.

X-Plane costs $80, MSFS costs $70. The ones who are going for the super-duper $250 edition aren't the ones who only spend $300 for the entire year...

So far the MS Gateway has been a massive, unpopular flop. And it's but a shadow of X-Planes very good SG. It will have no more effect on devs than XPs does.

Quote

2020 aircraft will work with 2024, so no need for anyone to buy them again.

This was a primary concern with XP v11 to v12, and most XP devs released free or very low cost updates for v12.

///

Not even going to address the "unsuccessful" assertion of business for top tier 3PDs like PMDG, Fenix, et al. ALL indications are entirely to the contrary of your statements and implications.

 

Quote

The whole reason 2024 exists was they found 2020 uncompetitive vs XPlane

Utterly ridiculous. Full stop.

We can argue about our preference of simulators til the end of time, but let's not get delirious.

XP v12 is great and getting better.

BUT, to grossly over simplify, MSFS is simply the more attractive simulator for first time / casual users. Doesn't make it actually better, but you should get my drift.

And there is that whole 15 million users thing, and the Navigraph Survey results, etc., to show that the two sims are CERTAINLY "competitive".

Good lord - now you've got me talking like I've got a favorite sim...