(posted similar q in MSFS just to keep the fighting dogs separate! 😉 )

See p107 in the survey results.

I mainly fly one or two TYPES of aircraft in X-Plane, and at least two other sims.

I just can't imagine limiting myself to just one TYPE of aircraft, let alone a single addon!

What say you...?

I can't believe more than half of flight sim users only fly a single aircraft. I wonder what was the exact wording of the original question?

P.S. 18% of (nVidia) users have an RTX 4090??? Good Lord, Navigraph users are definitely a rich bunch!

18 minutes ago, Murmur said:

I can't believe more than half of flight sim users only fly a single aircraft. I wonder what was the exact wording of the original question?

P.S. 18% of (nVidia) users have an RTX 4090??? Good Lord, Navigraph users are definitely a rich bunch!

Agree on both!

One thing that struck me as I reviewed the results is the highly interesting set of meta data around all this data 🙂

For e.g., Jorg said that 40% - 50% of MSFS players are on Xbox.

Yet according to this Navigraph survey, only 2% on are Xbox users. This is probably one of the best examples about why we can't make generalized conclusions about how MSFS (or any other sim) is doing overall.

That 60/40 split also highlights why we can't really count on Steam stats, either.

One of the few conclusions we can really make from this survey is that it would seem that Navigraph survey takers (as well as us here on AvSim) are heavily weighted towards the Super User / Prosumer end of the spectrum.

I guess put another way, though the survey was (partially) completed by 24,000 people, it means there's an additional 22,000 Xbox users who "should have" been included to help balance/normalize the results.

BtW, Kudos to the Navigraph team for clearly stating in every year's survey the utterly unavoidable limitations of any survey of this type. 👍

I never did it, waste of my life. Means nothing.

deleted

Edited April 17, 20251 yr by GoranM

Let me just repost this just to...flex🤪

S tier: 737NG/MAX (as a 737 simulator instructor for RW airline.)

A tier: 737CL/OG, 777, A319~340. (Have access to realworld manuals and doing realworld recurrent drill on desktop sim regularly)

B tier: 744/8, 757/767, A306/A310, PC12, C172.... (Have access to manuals "found online", occasionally doing some training scenario.)

C tier: 742, 727, 717, 787, MD80, MD11, CONC, A350, A380, Kingair, Tu154, Bell206, Bo105, F16.... (Have access to manuals "found online", knows basic system and operation, can fly A-B with realworld SOP)

D tier: ERJ, EJets, CRJ, Q400, DC3, Bae146/RJ, Dassault Mercure,DC8....( Have some manuals maybe fragmented, can fly A-B confidently, sometimes it's due to not good enough sim software available.)

F tier: A220, ATR, 707, Tu134.... (Not really tried yet, or not tried at all.)

And yes, I don't have a life.

6 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

For e.g., Jorg said that 40% - 50% of MSFS players are on Xbox.

Yet according to this Navigraph survey, only 2% on are Xbox users. This is probably one of the best examples about why we can't make generalized conclusions about how MSFS (or any other sim) is doing overall.

That 60/40 split also highlights why we can't really count on Steam stats, either.

I'm not surprised. I never put too much weight into the navigraph survey. It is interesting and gives a rough idea of where things stand, but it does not reflect the entire flight sim community IMO. I would say this survey is more reflective of the most hardcore flight sim users(e.g those willing to pay for navigraph). Jorg tends to be open with statistics on their Developer live streams. He said, two-thirds of users were on MSFS 2024 and one-third were on MSFS 2020. The xbox/pc split was like 60/40, or something like that, which indicates that they are underrepresentation going on in the survey.

6 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

That 60/40 split also highlights why we can't really count on Steam stats, either.

I believe the two biggest factors are Game Pass and Xbox. I didn't buy MSFS 2024. However, I've been a Game Pass subscriber for years now, so I use MSFS without directly paying for it. There are likely tens of thousands of users(maybe higher) like me using it for free via Game Pass, which wouldn't show up in the Steam numbers.

Edited April 17, 20251 yr by brinx

 

46 minutes ago, brinx said:

There are likely tens of thousands of users(maybe higher) like me using it for free via Game Pass

Not quite free, at $19.99/month?

23 minutes ago, Reader said:

Not quite free, at $19.99/month?

Yes, you are correct. Technically, it is not free. In my case, I was already a Game Pass member for other reasons, though.

8 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

For e.g., Jorg said that 40% - 50% of MSFS players are on Xbox.

something like 97% of xplane users are on android or ios (some 100million users total).

They dont engage with this survey for the same reason avsim doesnt have hundreds of millions of people posting. Their interest doesnt stretch far enough to complete the survey.

It doesn't mean there is anything "wrong" with the survey, just that that particular type of flightsimmers views are under represented - don't expect to use it to infer the behaviours of people who don't really care that much about flight sim.... but that should have been obvious already.

Edited April 17, 20251 yr by mSparks

7 hours ago, mjrhealth said:

I never did it, waste of my life. Means nothing.

Porobably at least two thirds of the players never touched it either. 

What concerns me is how the Xpane user based is still being unrepresented.

What I found interesting is related to Media consumption.

Out of the 23000 est survey FSElite.net lead with 41.8%, FlightSim.com with 23.6% and Avsim with 23.4% as their source of information which in this case carries the majority of MSFS user base.

Threshold comes in at 16.0% even though not many X Plane users pay that much attention to it until the recent release of the levelup aircrafts start to appear for XP12.

However I find is that there is no mention of Xpane.org as a media source of information yet they carry the largest user base of members who use X-plane with most the of the developers both freeware as well as payware reside. 

 

The survey is important, and reveals interesting views of the reality, but must be interpreted carefuly IMO.

I honestly didn't expect FS 2024 to be so behind the numbers of FS 2020, but I also believe X-Plane 12 has a lot more users than the proportions revealed by this Survey, probably because the number of simmers who participated are members of online sites where the great majority of users are MSFS users...

OFC I believe users from the .Org took the survey, but the totals are probably not representing the real X-Plane users base numbers.

In as far as I am concerned, MSFS 2020 and now 2024, were nice alternatives, and I have been enjoying playing both, now only FS 2024 because I completely left 2020 the moment I installed FS 2024, but truth is my real GOTO sim is again Xp12. 

Xp12 is so much better than MSFS for the typoe of use I give to flight simulators that I find myself these days starting MSFS just to test this or that announced fixes of the SU2 beta. At the end of the day Xp12 is becomming by far and behold my preferred flight simulator, and it's difficult to exist from a sim session in Xp12 without coming with a feel of satisfaction and the will to get back to it as soon as the next sim slot becomes available 🙂

Maybe next year's Survey will show a well deserved increase in X-Plane users !

 

1 hour ago, jcomm said:

The survey is important, and reveals interesting views of the reality, but must be interpreted carefuly IMO.

I honestly didn't expect FS 2024 to be so behind the numbers of FS 2020, but I also believe X-Plane 12 has a lot more users than the proportions revealed by this Survey, probably because the number of simmers who participated are members of online sites where the great majority of users are MSFS users...

OFC I believe users from the .Org took the survey, but the totals are probably not representing the real X-Plane users base numbers.

In as far as I am concerned, MSFS 2020 and now 2024, were nice alternatives, and I have been enjoying playing both, now only FS 2024 because I completely left 2020 the moment I installed FS 2024, but truth is my real GOTO sim is again Xp12. 

Xp12 is so much better than MSFS for the typoe of use I give to flight simulators that I find myself these days starting MSFS just to test this or that announced fixes of the SU2 beta. At the end of the day Xp12 is becomming by far and behold my preferred flight simulator, and it's difficult to exist from a sim session in Xp12 without coming with a feel of satisfaction and the will to get back to it as soon as the next sim slot becomes available 🙂

Maybe next year's Survey will show a well deserved increase in X-Plane users !

 

I've always loved X-Plane it provides an inexplicable sense of reality that FS24 can't quite capture, despite the structure it's in place. I wasn't arguing about their approach here either,that's another topic.
I even thought XP was dead forever.
After FS24 came out, I had a miserable period where neither simulator really suited me, and I didn't even know what the cause was.
Now, with this new beta version, along with the Google Map Enhancement Pro version, I'm happy like never. The feeling of "being there" has returned. Solid and enjoyable, like a manual landing on Toliss.

1 hour ago, jcomm said:

OFC I believe users from the .Org took the survey, but the totals are probably not representing the real X-Plane users base numbers.

There might have been some but not to greater extent otherwise you would see people talking about it over there which I have not seen. The org made no effort to inform that the survey was going on. I believe only those who were in the know participated.

Edited April 17, 20251 yr by BobFS88