40 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I’d be shocked if the desktop usage was that low…?

half a million seats would only work out to revenue of about $6M a year…

I am not privy to sales numbers but yeah, if you consider that an X-Plane copy is good for about 5 years of continuous updates...and then will work for decades longer, you can see why many regard it as an absolute steal. It comes down to about 1 dollar per MONTH during the active time, less if you keep playing after a new version comes out.

And that is for a game that has infinite replay value, not like some RPG that you can play once and then know the main story line.

But the same folks that cry "LR must shelf out the money for some decent sat imagery and photogrammetry or I go back to MSFS!" would burst a vessel if X-Plane´s price increased over 60$.

2 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I’d be shocked if the desktop usage was that low…?

half a million seats would only work out to revenue of about $6M a year…

Consumer desktop is only recently becoming a big thing for them

Their bread and butter was the multiple thousands of them that are commercial use at a thousand dollars each. Plus consulting fees. 

This estimates around 150k

https://steamdb.info/app/2014780/charts/

Another 350k in direct sales is feasible but probably optimistic.

Best stats I have is:

https://tooomm.github.io/github-release-stats/?username=msparks43&repository=747-400

13k over 5 months 

3k of them participate on the discord.

XP discord has 12k members (msfs 100k), so that 13k is about 25% of regularly active XP users.

Not nothing, but a lot of room still to grow. 

Very much not an easy market, and for sure ms devs have it even harder, because although there are more users from the massive investment MS put in marketing, they are shared among far more developers, and ms development is more time consuming and therefore expensive.

This is what breaks the average flight simulator. The bar is high and the market is small.

Edited September 18, 2025Sep 18 by mSparks

Half a million copies would be considered low? Well not in my opinion. With 6 mio a year and around 25 people, for a small compamy I wouldn’t say that it is that low.

But at the end of the day, there are no sales-numbers available in public so we can only guess.

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

This estimates around 150k

https://steamdb.info/app/2014780/charts/

Another 350k in direct sales is feasible but probably optimistic.

From my understanding, those total estimated user-numbers on Steam are based not only on Steam but in total. Meaning, direct sales included. Otherwise steam would know the exact numbers of their own users. But perhaps I am wrong.

Just now, Franz007 said:

From my understanding, those total estimated user-numbers on Steam are based not only on Steam but in total. Meaning, direct sales included. Otherwise steam would know the exact numbers of their own users. But perhaps I am wrong.

All three are estimates based on steam stats, it doesn't include other stores.

Msfs2024 is here

https://steamdb.info/app/2537590/charts/

Asobo said they hit 3 million last year iirc, although they weren't clear how many of those were gamepass subscriptions/had more than 2 hours simtime.

13 minutes ago, mSparks said:

All three are estimates based on steam stats, it doesn't include other stores.

Really? Ok I believe you if you know that. But why is steam itself estimating its own users and not simply publsihing the exact numbers? A bit strange.

Edited September 18, 2025Sep 18 by Franz007

21 minutes ago, Franz007 said:

steam itself estimating its own users and not simply publsihing the exact numbers? A bit strange.

Valve/steam dont publish sales data, these are 3rd party companies selling analytics of the numbers valve do publish (active user base/reviews etc)

Edited September 18, 2025Sep 18 by mSparks

29 minutes ago, Franz007 said:

But why is steam itself estimating its own users and not simply publsihing the exact numbers? A bit strange.

Why would they need to want to, and I doubt laminar would provide them with that info. A lot of work for no gain. just stats.

44 minutes ago, mjrhealth said:

Why would they need to want to, and I doubt laminar would provide them with that info. A lot of work for no gain. just stats.

According to msparks those are only the steam-numbers. Why would they have to estimate their own numbers? That’s what doesen’t make sense to me.

1 hour ago, Franz007 said:

But why is steam itself estimating its own users and not simply publsihing the exact numbers? A bit strange.

The website states SteamDB is not affiliated with Steam, it's apparently managed by some guy, so I think it's estimating figures using publicly available data.

4 minutes ago, Murmur said:

The website states SteamDB is not affiliated with Steam, it's apparently managed by some guy, so I think it's estimating figures using publicly available data.

Ah, get it now. Thanks 🙏🙂

4 hours ago, mSparks said:

Asobo said they hit 3 million last year iirc, although they weren't clear how many of those were gamepass subscriptions/had more than 2 hours simtime.

I don't think it matters if the userbase is Game Pass or not. Microsoft places more emphasis on active player count rather than on raw sales. In other words, having 2-3 million monthly players on game pass playing a particular game is more successful than selling 500k copies. The goal of adding all these games into game pass is to retain players (revenue stream) and grow the userbase.  So, investing in a game that is popular on game pass would be a worthwhile investment event if the raw sales appear smaller. Success can't be measured solely on sales in Microsoft's case.

On the other hand, a traditional studio/publisher requires raw sales to continue funding development.

2 hours ago, brinx said:

I don't think it matters if the userbase is Game Pass or not. Microsoft places more emphasis on active player count rather than on raw sales. In other words, having 2-3 million monthly players on game pass playing a particular game is more successful than selling 500k copies. The goal of adding all these games into game pass is to retain players (revenue stream) and grow the userbase.  So, investing in a game that is popular on game pass would be a worthwhile investment event if the raw sales appear smaller. Success can't be measured solely on sales in Microsoft's case.

On the other hand, a traditional studio/publisher requires raw sales to continue funding development.

You’re painting with way too broad a brush.
Yes, Microsoft leans on Game Pass engagement, but sales still matter.  DLC, marketplace purchases, expansions, and even negotiated payouts to third-party devs all bring in revenue. It’s not like they just stop caring about raw numbers.

And “traditional” publishers. They’re not chained to one revenue stream either. Take Laminar.  Everyone knows them for X-Plane, but they’ve also got a steady market on the App Store and Google Play with other apps. That’s recurring revenue outside of the desktop sim, and it keeps funding development. Plenty of other studios do the same with DLC, season passes, mobile ports, merch, and cross-platform launches.

So it’s not:

Microsoft = engagement only

Traditional studios = raw sales only

Both are hybrid models. Sales, engagement, and long-tail monetization all matter. The idea that only “traditional” publishers rely on sales while Microsoft doesn’t is just too simplistic.

I'd wager that most of us don't even know that Laminar has all these apps on the app store.

X-Plane Mobile and its aircraft add ons

X-Plane 12 Control Pad

X-Plane: Starship

Bloodhound SSC

Stradale Racing Simulator

Space Combat

Young’s Modulus

Xavion

…and also we don’t have to forget that they have their professional licences of XP that are sold for a way higher price and also brings them revenue.

41 minutes ago, GoranM said:

You’re painting with way too broad a brush.
Yes, Microsoft leans on Game Pass engagement, but sales still matter.  DLC, marketplace purchases, expansions, and even negotiated payouts to third-party devs all bring in revenue. It’s not like they just stop caring about raw numbers.

And “traditional” publishers. They’re not chained to one revenue stream either. Take Laminar.  Everyone knows them for X-Plane, but they’ve also got a steady market on the App Store and Google Play with other apps. That’s recurring revenue outside of the desktop sim, and it keeps funding development. Plenty of other studios do the same with DLC, season passes, mobile ports, merch, and cross-platform launches.

I was focusing on the game itself, not DLCs or microtransactions. Everyone in the industry understand that they are cannibalizing sales in order to grow game pass. There are numerous articles on this subject. If you are one of the 34+ million game pass users, why would you spend $70 on MSFS when it is included in your subscription? The only reason to purchase is if you wanted aircrafts in the higher tiers like deluxe edition, which is more than $70 anyway. Sales alone are just not an accurate indication of success anymore for Microsoft published games. As a result, their metrics shifted to engagement because this paints a more accurate picture. You could have 5 million players, but sales might only show 800 thousand for example because of game pass. 

For the rest of the industry, success is measured by sales, even for other large publishers like Sony and EA. These publishers do not add games to their subscription until at least a year after release, maybe much longer.

Now to your point, once you have the players you can monetize with DLCs and other microtransactions. But you still need the engagement first.

1 hour ago, GoranM said:

I'd wager that most of us don't even know that Laminar has all these apps on the app store.

I only knew about the Xplane mobile and Xavion. I used to have xplane mobile on my phone a couple years back. These days I don't buy mobile games anymore. I just stream games to my phone via game pass cloud.