On 1/22/2025 at 6:56 PM, abrams_tank said:

They are obviously trying to create a digital twin earth for the long run. Microsoft could spend a minmal amount of money enhancing each MSFS version, and just sell us a new MSFS every 4 to 6 years with upgraded scenery and they would profit tremendously.

The fact that they spent so much money and resources on MSFS 2024 tells me that they found MSFS 2020 to be extremely profitable, probably because of the marketplace.

Flight sim will always be a niche and won't match the playerbase of games like Falllout. It is what it is. But it's possible that MSFS is more profitable, or just as profitable, as some mainstream AAA games because of the spending in the MSFS marketplace.

In the end, it's obvious that Microsoft is advancing their digital twin earth. Even if they incurred a small loss in MSFS (which I doubt, it appears MSFS 2020 was profitable for them based on the people and contractors that workrd on MSFS 2024), the cost is justified if they ultimately want the most advanced digitap twin earth for the market.

 

Yeah but they can’t even do that right. 2024 would be awesome if they had just gave us 2020 with an updated scenery and the weather additions— instead they gave us a broken locked down cloud gaming engine with bugs that were fixed over 8 major updates ago… the confidence is low and the player counts support that. 

1 hour ago, UAL4life said:

instead they gave us a broken locked down cloud gaming engine with bugs that were fixed over 8 major updates ago… the confidence is low and the player counts support that.

I know, its a terrible package.

 

On 1/22/2025 at 11:12 PM, jcomm said:

Excellent post and theme!

I believe it's difficult to compare the "audiences" of the different games the OP showed use statistics from Steam. Specially being Steam the base...

Flight simulation is still a "niche" market. People will only get into it if "flying" is some sort of passion in their minds.

Exceptions in the case of xBox would be all those users with a game pass that even not being particularly fond of flight or it's simulation, load the game just to check how it looks and performs in their console, and also probably as a "scenery browser" alternative to using Bing or Google Maps...

For me, specially after having just now started to play Career Mode in FS 2024, it's a lot clearer that ASOBO aimed at a very wide range of potential users, with a focus on didactic aspects of civil flight as a recreational or professional activity.

Even if not *perfect*, Career mode which I had been avoiding since I installed FS 2024 is actually very well thought, and I'd say, structured - yes there are bugs / limitations / inaccuracies, but overall the experience so far has been rather positive, and I personally intend to invest in it probably more than in casual airline flights... This aspect of MSFS is, I think, something we would probably have to pay for as an addon if the base FS 2020 remained the only version and specific addon packages would be released to augment it's features, so, I can't complain having had to buy FS 2024, and I am actually really glad with it, to the point of having completely dropped FS 2020.

I think their Project is that of bringing the World of Civil Flight, probably with future incursions into the military side of Aviation, to a wider audience, giving those that previously would use the simulator just as a --> flight <-- simulator, the chance to get a structured and more or less sound perspective of what the progress of a pilot life can be.

This seems like a great objective for the younger, and for the older like me ( 60 yo ) it is, just as some aspects of MS FLIGHT were, really enjoyable.

Their aim is the satisfaction of a wider audience, with emphasis on the didactic aspects when possible, and I'm all for that !!!

In order to get the necessary outcome they have to bring to the MSFS ecosystem, as much as they can, the profits from addons purchased by their users, hence the Marketplace, and probably hence the not so open to 3pd aspects of the sim, which is bad for 3pds and sometimes also for users if their way of implementing it in the sim doesn't please them, but it's understandable as a necessary measure to ensure profitability and not bring outside of the platform the money users end up spending, leaving for ASOBO / MS just a marginal, with time rather residual, profit.

We really have to accept that if we want MSFS to keep alive, profit must sustain the huge structure behind it, so we will have to "sacrifice" some of our "earned rights" in order to be able to enjoy it's evolution, the more dynamic the best.

I honestly believe that although it would probably rise a wave of arguments / critics / blame / ..., actually restricting all addons to only be available through the Marketplace would be acceptable. In the limit even freeware developers willing to make their content available should have to be given access (for free) to the platform through a marketplace agent account, and submit their addons / mods / ... through it, in that case with cost ZERO.

Ideally a kind of "BAO Aircraft & Adventure Factory" / SDK + Tools kit should become available for all developers, probably Cloud based as pretty much everything these days.

A fully centralized feed for content is something I think ASOBO / MS should try to implement.

Please take 1000 upvotes 😁

Couldn't agree more. 👍

To the moon and back

If you'll be, if you'll be my babayyy

On 1/23/2025 at 6:07 AM, VeryBumpy said:

Great OP post.

The only reason I worry about FS2024's future is I'm not sure I'll get my $200 money's worth.

3-4 years until full play-ability again?

Then what? The server shutoff support date is critical.

I also got the Aviators Edition for $200.

I have such a broad selection of aircraft to fly now (I fly all types) that I'm pretty much completely unmotivated to spend any money on 3rd Party stuff, especially considering that many of the included add-ons are by High Quality 3rd Party Devs. E.g., why would I buy HPGs excellent H160 when they developed the Super Puma that's included with the sim...?

I'm getting into Airbus for the first time (mainly the A400, but the others, too), so I don't even really care that my PMDG stuff still isn't available (and I know they will bring it forward so I'm not worried about it).

From that perspective alone, I've already gotten my money's worth.

For the new stuff like missions and careers, I'm still going to give it a few months as I'm perfectly fine with free flights (and the missions I really like are only available in DCS World 😎).

While I'd fully join the pitchfork crowd if they pulled the plug prematurely with no offline option, I'm good with enjoying it moving forward.

5 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I know, its a terrible package.

 

I'm sorry dude, but some of those sand particles are off to the left too far.

dd

14 hours ago, AnkH said:

There is nothing to "buy", the STEAM numbers clearly shows it. If just MSFS2020 or just MSFS2024 would exist, the numbers for one single Microsoft sim would be higher. Simple maths, unless you assume that 100% of those using one or the other sim are actually using both all the time...

The problem with many of these assertions is that it's still early days for end user adoption. It's only been 3 months, still no major sim updates released, many 3rd party devs haven't even released Compatibility updates, let alone "Native" updates, the MarketPlace is unavailable, and a bunch of v2020 add-ons that ARE v2024 compatible are trapped behind that.

I certainly agree that MS should've pushed the release date of the sim forward to 2025. Outwardly that was a bad decision and they've received much bad press (deservedly). OTOH, we have no idea how well sales have been going, nor any idea if the Black Friday launch gave them enough of a surge in orders to justify the bad press. They know, and and they've been in the game biz long enough to have been able to know before hand.

So we need not be overly concerned with users staying on v20. Those folks have their reasons, and they're biding their time for when enough boxes are checked.

I look at XP as a somewhat similar example.

It was very rough when it released to the public, very few add-ons worked with it, and fundamental functionality didn't work (sound familiar...?).

And even so, Laminar reported record sales figures and hired a bunch of people.

And now, over a year later, v12 is hitting it's stride and everything is improving with every release.

MSFS v24 will be the same (similar to v2020 3 months after launch), so I just don't see why we would conflate today's irritations with a poor long term forecast.

v24 will become the best consumer flight sim ever made, just give it some time.

 

 

On 1/23/2025 at 2:29 AM, MarcG said:

As of right now the future of the franchise depends on them regaining trust in the players after the horrendous start to MSFS24, if they don't fix that then there may not be a future at all as well all know how M$ like to pull the plug on failing projects.

The future of the franchise looks fantastically bleak. MSFS is a broken platform, plagued with software and performance issues. Your average simmer may not be willing to wait months/years for the current software problems to be resolved. And then you have the issue of how poorly even the best hardware tend to perform on MSFS 2020 and 2024. In a match with the best hardware in existence, MSFS would always win. I have a $4500 computer and MSFS brings my GPU to its knees in most instances. To put it mildly, it’s the game from hell. I get so frustrated that I abandon the game for months, even years at a time. I suspect that MSFS will become cost prohibitive at some point, especially with the numbers posted by OP.

16 minutes ago, Huascar said:

I have a $4500 computer and MSFS brings my GPU to its knees in most instances.

You have a $4500 computer that is incapable of running MSFS?  How about putting your PC specs into your signature so we can believe that?  My PC spec is in my signature and cost approx. the same as yours - so how come mine is so smooth?

I wonder if you have been scammed and you actually have an intel 486 with onboard graphics in a flashy case? Either that or you purchased a $4500 PC 15 years ago.

 

Edited January 25, 20251 yr by MrBitstFlyer

11 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

You have a $4500 computer that is incapable of running MSFS?  How about putting your PC specs into your signature so we can believe that?  My PC spec is in my signature and cost approx. the same as yours - so how come mine is so smooth?

I wonder if you have been scammed and you actually have an intel 486 with onboard graphics in a flashy case? Either that or you purchased a $4500 PC 15 years ago.

 

LOL.  Very funny.  Flight Simming wise my AMD 5900X / 3900ti config will kick your Intel  config any day of the week.😝

dd

3 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

You have a $4500 computer that is incapable of running MSFS?  How about putting your PC specs into your signature so we can believe that?  My PC spec is in my signature and cost approx. the same as yours - so how come mine is so smooth?

I wonder if you have been scammed and you actually have an intel 486 with onboard graphics in a flashy case?

I have an Alienware Aurora R11, i9 CPU, RTX 3080 GPU, 128 RAM, Windows 11. 
But my post was not intended to compare systems, but rather chime me on the future of MSFS. 
 

Now,  if you, like many others, prefer to dismiss the ongoing issues and pretend it’s all good, go ahead and argue with the facts. 
 

MSFS 2020 was released four years ago, and it still has a bunch of issues. I simple don’t think it’s sustainable to maintain a platform in such state. Updates will go on forever. 

Asobo should have focused on improving 2020, instead of launching a remarkably failed product. 

You understand what it takes to recode data interfaces.  The problem as always is with what ? - Data"

10 minutes ago, Huascar said:

I have an Alienware Aurora R11, i9 CPU, RTX 3080 GPU, 128 RAM, Windows 11. 
But my post was not intended to compare systems, but rather chime me on the future of MSFS. 
 

Now,  if you, like many others, prefer to dismiss the ongoing issues and pretend it’s all good, go ahead and argue with the facts. 
 

MSFS 2020 was released four years ago, and it still has a bunch of issues. I simple don’t think it’s sustainable to maintain a platform in such state. Updates will go on forever. 

Asobo should have focused on improving 2020, instead of launching a remarkably failed product. 

Being wrong is not the same as being right.

dd 

44 minutes ago, Huascar said:

 To put it mildly, it’s the game from hell.

Well if its that bad why do you even try to repeat attempt to use it with frustration? seriously.

Just now, JBDB-MD80 said:

 

DP.

 

Edited January 25, 20251 yr by JBDB-MD80

2 minutes ago, JBDB-MD80 said:

Well if its that bad why do you even try to repeat attempt to use it with frustration? seriously.

Maybe it’s time for another 3 year break?