1 hour ago, GoranM said:

This will probably ruffle some feathers, but here’s my take: The only reason Asobo is bringing MSFS to PS5 is because their bottom line isn’t being met—it’s a cash grab. And to be fair, Laminar did the same thing with X-Plane Mobile. They needed funds to get XP10 done, the mobile market was wide open, and XP Mobile ended up financing XP10.

I'm curious if you would say the same thing if Laminar also struck a deal for XP on PS5...?

 

3 hours ago, blingthinger said:

If only profit was the motivation here. The move to playstation would have happened many years ago. "Desperation" is the key word now. 

If they can move to other platforms outside of Windows and xbox then it'll gain my interest again. I'd definitely buy 2024 if a Mac OS version was ever created.

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

The only reason Asobo is bringing MSFS to PS5 is because their bottom line isn’t being met—it’s a cash grab

I'm not convinced that it'll get them that many new users. A mobile version probably would do way better. 

48 minutes ago, tonywob said:

I'm not convinced that it'll get them that many new users. A mobile version probably would do way better. 

I think MSFS2024 on PSVR2 will be a blockbuster, and the best thing to happen to xplane since MSFS2020

 

 

1 hour ago, GoranM said:

The only reason Asobo is bringing MSFS to PS5 is because their bottom line isn’t being met—it’s a cash grab.

The financial information for them is public. The gaming division is doing well even with diminished hardware sale.  But a userbase of 80 million on PS5 is kind of hard to ignore.

Quote

Xbox FY25 Q4 gaming revenue is up 10% year-over-year, driven by growth in first-party games — with Xbox Game Pass reaching nearly $5 billion in annual revenue "for the first time"
...

Speaking on the earnings call accompanying the financial results, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella specifically praised the launch of Oblivion Remastered, also praising the arrival of Forza Horizon 5 on PlayStation 5.

 

I could see that not everyone understands the changing landscape in the gaming hardware and the console space, so I'll try to explain it. Hardware sales over time will play less of a factor going into the future. Many were even predicting that this could even be the last console generation with the rise of cloud gaming.

This move by Microsoft is actually not really surprising. This year they had 6 of the top 10 selling games on PS5, so releasing MSFS on that platform would be a no-brainer even to me.

Growth in the console sector is down overall. Both Sony and Microsoft are lagging behind sales of their last generation consoles. All this of this is happening while the development cost of games continues to rise. It is starting to make more financial sense to release games across multiple platforms. Sony is slowly coming around to this realization also with some releases on both PC and Xbox.

Another reason why hardware is becoming less relevant is because of cloud gaming. It completely removes the hardware from the equation. You buy the game once from Microsoft for example and play it on other services. You can get a Game Pass Cloud Game running on a Virtual Xbox somewhere in the cloud within 20 seconds (I tested with MSFS2020). Microsoft allows you to buy a game from then and run it on a competitor's cloud service like Nvidia GeForce Now using an RTX 4080. Nvidia simply checks to see if you own the license before allowing you to run it on their service. Buy once play anywhere will be a thing in the future. 

You can now stream games to amazon kindle stick, Oculus Quest, Phone, Tablet, Rival Cloud Platforms, LG Electronics and more. No need to own the physical hardware anymore. It is just a radically different approach from what we were used to in the past.

 

 

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

I think MSFS2024 on PSVR2 will be a blockbuster, and the best thing to happen to xplane since MSFS2020

Good Video. I always thought Oculus Quest was better than PSVR2 visually, but that review leads me to believe I was wrong.

I would not buy a PS5/VR2 solely for MSFS but if I already had it on my shelf, I would dust it off again.

3 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I'm curious if you would say the same thing if Laminar also struck a deal for XP on PS5...?

 

I said something similar that laminar did. Laminar moved to the mobile market because question marks were hanging over X-Planes future.  XP mobile funded XP10. 

2 hours ago, brinx said:

I could see that not everyone understands the changing landscape in the gaming hardware and the console space, so I'll try to explain it. Hardware sales over time will play less of a factor going into the future. Many were even predicting that this could even be the last console generation with the rise of cloud gaming.

They were all wrong.

2 hours ago, brinx said:

Another reason why hardware is becoming less relevant is because of cloud gaming

"Cloud gaming" failed, catastrophically, several years ago(with google stadia). For two reasons, the first being the number of people with network connections fast enough for a good experience is vanishingly small. The second being even for people that have the necessary network connection the input lag is unacceptable for anything other than the slowest paced of games, for an expense that works out considerably more than just buying say, a switch, a steam deck or ps5.

2 hours ago, brinx said:

No need to own the physical hardware anymore. It is just a radically different approach from what we were used to in the past.

Microsoft bet the house on it. Now many don't have jobs, and whether xbox studios continues to exist has a huge question mark over it.

PSPlus isn't a streaming service, its a store like steam, one that gives online multiplayer, discounts and free titles.

2 hours ago, brinx said:

Both Sony and Microsoft are lagging behind sales of their last generation consoles.

Microsoft is, PS5 sales rates are pretty much exactly equal to PS4 sales, I linked the stats for that already. And that is despite the consoles being massively overpriced and fairly difficult to get hold of.

2 hours ago, brinx said:

All this of this is happening while the development cost of games continues to rise.

Not really, its been falling consistently for a few years now, especially with AI, raytracing and unreal 5. Long gone are the days a AAA title needed to spend $250million on a render farm prerendering 90% of the content.

On the other hand, users expectations are much higher, they have been spoiled by titles like RD2. That basically put a baseline on the minimum a game had to compete with, if a game wasn't better than RD2, gamers wouldn't buy it, and would just keep playing RD2.

The next title to decide what hardware people buy is GTA6.

https://www.eurogamer.net/gta-6-delayed-to-2026

1 hour ago, brinx said:

Good Video. I always thought Oculus Quest was better than PSVR2 visually, but that review leads me to believe I was wrong.

I would not buy a PS5/VR2 solely for MSFS but if I already had it on my shelf, I would dust it off again.

Ace combat 7 on psvr is still, to date, the most flawless flight simulator experience I have had, just very very limited content.

The killer feature of the PSVR2 is the eye tracking, that enables foveated rendering, that lets them crank up the visual quality while getting better performance than 2D...

These are my VR settings in XP12

Not quite perfect yet (me or sim performance), but the only additional hardware needed in top of the PC is a quest 3.

Not quite perfect.... But getting very very close.

4 hours ago, tonywob said:

I'm not convinced that it'll get them that many new users. A mobile version probably would do way better. 

I still haven’t counted that out. I’m not against any kind of venture that’ll generate funds. Particularly to keep a company going. But the comment has to be made, with a team of 300+ developers, the money pool can get drained very quickly if a stream of cash wasn’t constantly flowing. 

6 hours ago, GoranM said:

This will probably ruffle some feathers, but here’s my take: The only reason Asobo is bringing MSFS to PS5 is because their bottom line isn’t being met—it’s a cash grab. And to be fair, Laminar did the same thing with X-Plane Mobile. They needed funds to get XP10 done, the mobile market was wide open, and XP Mobile ended up financing XP10.

It's a business at the end of the day. If it stops bringing in the money, Microsoft / Asobo will shelve it, just like any other underperforming product.

3 hours ago, GoranM said:

I said something similar that laminar did. Laminar moved to the mobile market because question marks were hanging over X-Planes future.  XP mobile funded XP10. 

Perhaps we have different understandings of “cash grab” then?

i see it as a rather derogatory term akin to “scam”

So was it also a scam when LR went mobile…?

MS doesn’t need a cash infusion for development.

and by adding all those Sony users, their considerable operating costs rise linearly with each user. Plus whatever cut they need to give to Sony. So this is a lower margin move…

i mean did we call it a “cash grab” when LR or MS decided to sell on Steam, and was that also a move of “desperation”?

somebody else here has shared a better explanation, and it fits well with Occam’s Razor: market expansion driven by hardware independence 

 

Edited September 30, 2025Sep 30 by UrgentSiesta

41 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Perhaps we have different understandings of “cash grab” then?

i see it as a rather derogatory term akin to “scam”

So was it also a scam when LR went mobile…?

MS doesn’t need a cash infusion for development.

and by adding all those Sony users, their considerable operating costs rise linearly with each user. Plus whatever cut they need to give to Sony. So this is a lower margin move…

i mean did we call it a “cash grab” when LR or MS decided to sell on Steam, and was that also a move of “desperation”?

somebody else here has shared a better explanation, and it fits well with Occam’s Razor: market expansion driven by hardware independence 

 

I don’t consider ‘cash grab’ anything remotely resembling a scam. A cash grab can be a Black Friday sale. At least, that’s how I see it.  Making it for the PS5, is a lot more like a long term version. There may very well be percentages involved, but it’s still a market they’re willing to exploit for more sales. Mobile platform next?  Who knows. 

Edited September 30, 2025Sep 30 by GoranM

45 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

i mean did we call it a “cash grab” when LR or MS decided to sell on Steam, and was that also a move of “desperation”?

I want to comment on this, specifically. Selling on Steam is just another outlet for the same operating system. Steam also accounts for the economy of the country it sells in, so software is more affordable in countries where the dollar is weaker. 

If MS killed Xplane im sure you lot would find something else to argue over. Maybe thats why they didnt. Keeps forums filled with nothing.

27 minutes ago, GoranM said:

I want to comment on this, specifically. Selling on Steam is just another outlet for the same operating system.

I'm not sure I completely understand why the operating system matters.

Sony has been porting many of their games to steam including Spiderman, God of War, uncharted and many more. These were built for the PlayStation platform and later ported to PC/Steam but I don't think anyone would classify this as a money grab or desperation on Sony's part. These companies are trying to reach the largest audience possible. The budget for these titles is in the hundreds of millions, so they want to recover that and make a profit on top of it.

Quote

Former Sony exec finally says the quiet part out loud: putting PlayStation games on PC is 'almost like printing money'

"Releasing on PC does many things: it reaches a new audience who do not own consoles—especially in regions where consoles are not as popular," Yoshida said in the interview.

So there you have it: console game + PC launch = profit. Yoshida has been dishing all manner of Sony-related details since leaving PlayStation. 

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/former-sony-exec-finally-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-putting-playstation-games-on-pc-is-almost-like-printing-money/