18 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Or maybe there’s nothing to be gained by updating these aircraft to the new sim?

For payware aircraft it’s a matter of revenue and like you said “feed families” (or just themselves) … updates don’t generate much income (if any), new aircraft do.  

But with that said, I’m a little puzzled by conflicting reports from developers claiming 10x more sales in the first month than entire product lifetime sales in other platforms like P3D … if that were accurate then I would expect to see dedicated development teams and giving up one’s “day job” to pursue full time Add-On development for MSFS.  So there does seem to be some disconnect between what is being said by developers vs. what is being produced by developers.

But, as per my other thread, I’m still having a hard time keeping up with frequent Add-ons for MSFS 2024 … so obviously developers are supporting MSFS 2024 but it seems the “update” path is lower priority to the “new” path.

But one expectation I would warn you against … don’t expect lifetime support, that’s not sustainable by any developer at any time regardless of platform.  If you think MSFS 2020 to MSFS 2024 updates are slow … then you’ll hate XP11 to XP12 aircraft update durations (2-4 years or maybe never is common).

 

1 hour ago, kerosene31 said:

2020 is still fully supported, so I don't see the issue.  That's even assuming that MS keeps up with the same cycle (that is not a given, 2 releases is not necessarily a pattern).  What's not sustainable?  We've got both sims supported.  

I honestly thought we were long past these discussions.  You choose when you upgrade.  Nobody is forcing you.  Many people still fly 2020 today, and MS still supports it.  

It sounds great from a simmer  perspective but is it sustainable for MS to continue to invest in two platforms? And what happens when 2028 rolls around and MS has not made much money on 2024 upgrades because many are lagging on 2020. Do they release and support a third sim platform? Do they EoL 2020 to get people to move? The fact things are lagging so much and many simmers or devs can’t be bothered with 2024 is not great for the overall business in my opinion. How do you see this playing out. 

Edited March 12Mar 12 by Virtual-Chris

1 hour ago, JYW said:

That's not down to Microsoft though.

It's just that some developers were fantastic and got compatible or native versions out quickly.  Some took long and some charged.  Then there is SWS (Kodiak dev) who have been staggeringly disinterested. I own a lot of their products in 2020 (Van RV10, Vans RV14, Van RV8, PC12, Kodiak, etc) and none of them have 2024 native versions yet.  Worse than that, some of them aren't even properly compatible. For example, their config tablet that they use in some of their aircraft doesn't work in 2024.  So you have a black, dead tablet in those planes.

I like their addons, but SWS have been the worst of the worst where 2024 is concerned.

That's not MS's fault.  It's just a lack of motivation and interest from devs like SWS.

It seems I just picked the worst aircraft to invest in from a developer standpoint, which is somewhat at odds with how popular they were. The Kodiak, the H145, and the iFly 737 were (maybe still are) some of the most popular add-on aircraft in their respective classes but seem to be low priority by their developers. It’s not clear what SWS has been doing. Hype has lost their developer. And iFly seems to be taking their sweet time as well. 

8 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

It sounds great from a summer perspective but is it sustainable for MS to continue to invest in two platforms? And what happens when 2028 rolls around and MS has not made much money on 2024 upgrades because many are lagging on 2020. Do they release and support a third sim platform? Do they EoL 2020 to get people to move? The fact things are lagging so much and many simmers or devs can’t be bothered with 2024 is not great for the overall business in my opinion. How do you see this playing out. 

You're making a ton of assumptions, then trying to predict doom and gloom?  

Why not wait for the Navigraph survey results?  Those results should be out soon.  

1 hour ago, Virtual-Chris said:

The Kodiak, the H145, and the iFly 737 were (maybe still are) some of the most popular add-on aircraft in their respective classes

How do you know that?  Developers rarely share exact sales figure and tend to work in generic terms when it comes to marketing/sales side of the business.

1 hour ago, Virtual-Chris said:

It sounds great from a simmer  perspective but is it sustainable for MS to continue to invest in two platforms?

To my outside view, it looks like they're NOT investing in two platforms, they're investing in just one --  for the most part...

They unified the photoscenery feeds last year, but did they do anything else for 2020 since?   And if anything the scenery unification was cost-saver for them, no need to service two different scenery streams anymore.

But we're on the outside looking in.  We don't have the numbers and I'm not even sure if the Navigraph survey will give us any insight as to your question.

2 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

It’s not clear what SWS has been doing.

I am also waiting for the Kodiak to be refreshed... but the better strategy is likely to switch from the Kodiak to the BlackSquare Caravan, expected out March 17 🙂

18 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

by saying most gamers didn’t switch to 2024 until SU4 says the upgrade adoption has been very slow… and that means there hasn’t been a lot of demand or money to be made with 2024 native aircraft.

It may just be semantics, but note I said "lots", not "most"... and a subset of the holdouts were actively trying to convince people not to even try 2024, both here and on places like Reddit, and that may have spooked the smaller devs a bit. But I have no doubt that the developers who got in on 2024 early with marketplace products have made a boatload of money.

2 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

the better strategy is likely to switch from the Kodiak to the BlackSquare Caravan, expected out March 17 🙂

 

Edited March 13Mar 13 by Eclex

The Kodiak has modern Garmin Gps without 20 panel dials to view.

 

Dave

Edited March 13Mar 13 by Eclex

16 minutes ago, Eclex said:

The Kodiak has modern Garmin Gps without 20 panel dials to view. I don't think the caravan has any form of thrust reversers for a 300 foot landing. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't see the beta  range showing on the caravan video throttle lever.

Dave

What? The 208 absolutely has beta and reverse pitch.

Thanks, I stand corrected  :)