22 hours ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

No, as a businessman myself, I can assure you that not all collabs are good for business. There are concepts of dilution of identity, feature bloat, etc... If as a restaurateur in an upscale/fine dining segment, I begin to collaborate with drag show performers (nothing against drag show performers - they have their own market segment), would it bring in people? Yes... Perhaps. Will it dilute identity of a restaurant that has its own niche and focus? Absolutely. It's entirely not the place for those events. Therefore, I'd never do it. Because it makes no sense. Read the audience. That would get other segment (the core one) of the clientele to leave... kind of like what MS is doing with quite a few people commenting everywhere how they are switching to XP12. 

The definition of Elitism is believing that one belongs to a group that should exclude other groups considered "not worthy" of being part of it. No such thing is expressed here. What I expressed were my own feelings about the direction of the product and why I don't enjoy it anymore. If someone has MSFS as their sim of choice, I'd say... more power to them. Go and enjoy.

I think Purism was the word you were looking for. I believe the simulator experience should be about aviation and nothing else. Sure, it's a game, but not in a traditional sense. Quite a few people, myself included, use it to become familiar with flows and procedures. It can also work well for training the brain for making good decisions when it comes to real-world aviation. I can tell you that I am a better pilot of my C182 today BECAUSE of the extensive amount of times I spent in XP and MSFS. I try to learn from every session and every failure scenario I practice and the decisions I made are self-evaluated and questioned. It's not about "flying" - nothing like this can compare to actually being at the controls. Without feel, the inputs are fairly devoid of real impact. This is about flows, procedures, and training decision-making ability. So... not really a traditional game... like STALKER or Elder Scrolls. It's pretty hard to learn anything from those games you can use in real world. 

Purism is about not diluting the essence. Sometimes less is more. When you narrow down the focus and make it razor sharp, you have a better product. In which case, I am happy to be a "purist". It doesn't mean things I have no interest don't deserve to be in the product. A great example is Laminar's next update which will focus on VR. I am not a VR user, so it's meaningless to me, but it's obviously meaningful to a ton of people, which makes me happy for them - a feature THEY use is being improved. All of LR's work focuses on the core experience of it being a flight simulator, the best one they can deliver. THAT is important. Do they want to be successful in terms of sales? Of course! But not at the price of diluting what the product is all about. If XP started adding fantasy elements and entertaining the audience by throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, it would be highly disappointing. So yes, call me a "purist", I am not ashamed of being branded so. 

As a businessman with a long history in advertising, I disagree.

tho let me say up front that you’ve made good points - many of which I agree. 🤙

However, the point about the restaurant misses the mark - widely. MSFS is a mass market product. So it’s like a fast food chain. I.e., there is no brand dilution through these collabs. 

I’ll give you the Purists comment as well, tho I did mean Elitist 😉

Purists can also be Dogmatists. Not a good thing. 

And purism is no guarantee of a good product that continually advances and improves. Prepar3D being the primary case in point. 

Re “many” people “leaving” MSFS for XP:

A. There are likely at least 10x more MSFs players than XP. So even if “a bunch” of players ADD XP to their list of games, it’s likely a very small percentage of the player base. 

B. And we can’t assume that people are leaving MSFS at all, and…

C. …even those that do - are they actually dissatisfied…or just bored?

XP was going nowhere fast before MSFS came on the scene. 

And to their credit, LR have made incredibly good progress in keeping the sim relevant to meeting current demands. 

So in sum, if I had to choose one path or the other, experimentation is quite a healthy practice. 

I agree with you, actually. On all of the points you made above. Like Goran said, no ill will was meant. 

Especially on the point of XP not advancing quickly enough before MSFS gave LR a motivation to innovate more and quicker. Between XP11.5 (which is when I started using XP - AFER MSFS 2020 came out) and the current version, it's leaps and bounds! 

Competition is a great thing. It's what drives innovation. Purism (as you mentioned in LM's case) can also lead to stagnation, I agree. I am not THAT kind, because I always try to push myself. But I can see how it can be a detriment to some. I want MSFS to do better. I want to like it more. Maybe that will happen, maybe it won't. I am happy with XP, but to all those who enjoy MSFS 2024, like I said, more power to them! In certain aspects, I hope LR's turn is to motivate MS. The environmental depiction far surpasses MSFS among other things. Once the new scenery in XP platform rolls out, I believe it will be a revolutionary release. Not just an evolutionary one. 

25 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

XP was going nowhere fast before MSFS came on the scene. 

I'll just disagree with this point.  

X-Plane was rather steady for many years leading up to MSFS2020.  My sales numbers reflect this.  There was definitely a healthy market, but it really started spiking with XP10.  I wasn't a millionaire back then, but then, not many developers were/are.  I had 4 add ons on the market, and 2 of them were responsible for giving me a very good living, up until 2016, when sales tapered off.  MSFS likely gave the flight sim world a good nudge, but to say XPlane was going nowhere fast is a bit of an exaggeration.  There's no way I'd be where I am now if it wasn't for X-Plane and its customer base.  

29 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

There are likely at least 10x more MSFs players than XP. So even if “a bunch” of players ADD XP to their list of games, it’s likely a very small percentage of the player base. 

I might throw in my 2c worth on this one, too.  I wouldn't say 10x.  The latest survey shows that, and even if people didn't take the survey, it's safe to say it all scales accordingly.  Maybe 4-5x more.  And I don't believe, for 1 second, numbers like 10 million customers.  
Just my point of view.  

I actually agree with @UrgentSiesta.

IMO Austin, during at least a couple of years, was so involved in that terrible Patent Trolling case that he didn't have much time to dedicate to X-Plane, and I felt it somehow on the pace with which things happened with the sim development.

With his return to business and the decision to start growing the team and finally embracing important facets of the simulation, including ATC, multi-threading, scenery, graphics, and more recently all the updates to systems and aerodynamics, X-Plane 12 is finally moving at a very promissing cruise speed.

I strongly hope and believe believe next year's Navigraph Survey will reveal that, with a considerable growth of user base, and even probably simmers moving from other platforms into X-Plane 12, specially those who care more about details and certain aspects of realism in a desktop flight simulator.

Edited April 21Apr 21 by jcomm

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

I'll just disagree with this point.  

X-Plane was rather steady for many years leading up to MSFS2020.  My sales numbers reflect this.  There was definitely a healthy market, but it really started spiking with XP10.  I wasn't a millionaire back then, but then, not many developers were/are.  I had 4 add ons on the market, and 2 of them were responsible for giving me a very good living, up until 2016, when sales tapered off.  MSFS likely gave the flight sim world a good nudge, but to say XPlane was going nowhere fast is a bit of an exaggeration.  There's no way I'd be where I am now if it wasn't for X-Plane and its customer base.  

I might throw in my 2c worth on this one, too.  I wouldn't say 10x.  The latest survey shows that, and even if people didn't take the survey, it's safe to say it all scales accordingly.  Maybe 4-5x more.  And I don't believe, for 1 second, numbers like 10 million customers.  
Just my point of view.  

Yes - good points as always (plus the behind the scenes perspective!). 🙏

I’ll clarify that the rate of improvement of v11 vs v12 is really what I’m driving at here. 

For e.g., I actually sidelined v11 for P3D v5(!). That was a decision taken for a variety of reasons but mainly that P3D v5 delivered a DRAMATIC increase in simulation quality & performance across the board. 

However, the rate of improvement in v12, including the huge jump up from v11, has been far more rapid & dramatic. 👍

To the point where P3D is still installed but almost never used… 😮

//

The Navigraph survey is an island unto itself. Highly skewed sample that is clearly misaligned with the broader market. 

Best provable example there is the fact that Xbox only accounts for 2pct of the players, when MS says Xbox is nearly half. 

And just lately we have the “surprisingly” high sales on PS5 adding significant additional players. 

For e.g., I bet you a license of the Challenger 650 that if the survey sampled the utilization rate of Career Mode, it’d be extraordinarily low like Xbox, too. And again, MS asserts that CM is nearly 50% of play time, which is higher than they themselves anticipated. 🤙

I’m sure the “millions” figure includes every single download ever, and even then it’s artificially inflated by Game Pass, etc. 

But the point stands: 

I doubt very many people are outright abandoning MSFS for X-Plane. I’m pretty sure the inverse is true, also.

Like addons, the sims are just different pieces of software that run in the same hardware, and are incredibly good values for the expanded experiences they offer. 

And, to whatever degree this survey is actually representative, we see that XP user numbers are stable.

My caution here is that seeing anecdotal “bunches” of people buying XP isn’t indicative of anything material given the huge disparity in overall user numbers. 

Like I said, since both sims are so cheap, adding another sim to your computer can be justified as easily as purchasing another addon. And for the same exact reasons. 🤙

Edited April 21Apr 21 by UrgentSiesta

40 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Yes - good points as always (plus the behind the scenes perspective!). 🙏

I’ll clarify that the rate of improvement of v11 vs v12 is really what I’m driving at here. 

For e.g., I actually sidelined v11 for P3D v5(!). That was a decision taken for a variety of reasons but mainly that P3D v5 delivered a DRAMATIC increase in simulation quality & performance across the board. 

However, the rate of improvement in v12, including the huge jump up from v11, has been far more rapid & dramatic. 👍

To the point where P3D is still installed but almost never used… 😮

//

The Navigraph survey is an island unto itself. Highly skewed sample that is clearly misaligned with the broader market. 

Best provable example there is the fact that Xbox only accounts for 2pct of the players, when MS says Xbox is nearly half. 

And just lately we have the “surprisingly” high sales on PS5 adding significant additional players. 

For e.g., I bet you a license of the Challenger 650 that if the survey sampled the utilization rate of Career Mode, it’d be extraordinarily low like Xbox, too. And again, MS asserts that CM is nearly 50% of play time, which is higher than they themselves anticipated. 🤙

I’m sure the “millions” figure includes every single download ever, and even then it’s artificially inflated by Game Pass, etc. 

But the point stands: 

I doubt very many people are outright abandoning MSFS for X-Plane. I’m pretty sure the inverse is true, also.

Like addons, the sims are just different pieces of software that run in the same hardware, and are incredibly good values for the expanded experiences they offer. 

And, to whatever degree this survey is actually representative, we see that XP user numbers are stable.

My caution here is that seeing anecdotal “bunches” of people buying XP isn’t indicative of anything material given the huge disparity in overall user numbers. 

Like I said, since both sims are so cheap, adding another sim to your computer can be justified as easily as purchasing another addon. And for the same exact reasons. 🤙

I was thinking exactly the same. Considering the demographic of Navigraph users tends to be comprised mostly of serious simmers who value realism, authenticity, etc. That 2% of XBox users is nowhere near representative of the total ratio of PC vs XBox (or PS5)... It's just that the console users are casual gamers who don't bother to participate in Navigraph surveys. There are a lot more of them than of us (that includes Avsim user base - we ARE the minority). The quicker we accept it, the better. I am perfectly fine with that, too. 

Your parallel to the Career Mode has actually been answered in the survey without betting your CL650 license. 😉

There was a question of "what type of flying do you do?" and the majority (of course, considering the sample) answered IFR. Missions WAS one of the choices but it was again, something like 2%. 

Microsoft wouldn't have put so much into that Career Mode if they didn't have a reason to believe a vast majority of their userbase wants something like that. The realistic number is MUCH higher than what Navigraph can sample. The Navigraph survey targets a very small percentage of sim users. 

OK... Hang with me here... (no Purism or Elitism or any other -isms here)... This kind of boils down to what I think is true:

- Without taking away merits of either sim, MSFS intentionally targets casual gamers, thus GamePass, consoles, etc... It doesn't mean that sim can't be used for more "serious" stuff - procedure flows, etc... It just means that it has a lot of appeal to the casual segment of the market. I am willing to bet MY CL650 license 😉 that X-Plane has a lot less casual users. Therefore, the numbers of MSFS users vs XP users is likely a lot more skewed than the survey suggests. All the XBox players that didn't take the survey? Add them on top of the ones who did. Granted, XP also has a large percentage of users who didn't take that survey, but in sheer numbers, there are lot less. Realistically speaking, having taken a Stats course in college, I know that a sample size of 42,000 respondents means absolutely nothing in terms of a true picture of the market. As a matter of fact, most of these survey results would fail simple statistical tests and be considered "statistically insignificant". Am I making sense here? 

- Considering above, I also wouldn't postulate that "not that many people are moving away from MSFS" - if you take a deeper dive into the more "core simmer" social media presence, even YouTube has so many content creators saying they haven't really given XP a chance before but now that they have, they actually really like it. For example, some real-world Airbus pilot (forgot his name, I don't remember those things well), said that based on his experience in the A320, his recent Toliss usage clearly made say that it just "feels a lot more like the real thing in terms of response" than what he has seen in MSFS... So, I wouldn't underestimate the number of people switching, or at least using BOTH sims instead of just one. And as XP makes strides in development, especially with the upcoming Next Gen scenery they are working on, I can only see XP marketshare growing against MSFS, because realistically? I think MSFS has tapped what there was as far as userbase. It won't get that much larger than what it is now. XP? We have yet to see, but I have a feeling, the userbase of XP has PLENTY of room to grow. 

2 hours ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

I was thinking exactly the same. Considering the demographic of Navigraph users tends to be comprised mostly of serious simmers who value realism, authenticity, etc. That 2% of XBox users is nowhere near representative of the total ratio of PC vs XBox (or PS5)... It's just that the console users are casual gamers who don't bother to participate in Navigraph surveys. There are a lot more of them than of us (that includes Avsim user base - we ARE the minority). The quicker we accept it, the better. I am perfectly fine with that, too. 

Your parallel to the Career Mode has actually been answered in the survey without betting your CL650 license. 😉

There was a question of "what type of flying do you do?" and the majority (of course, considering the sample) answered IFR. Missions WAS one of the choices but it was again, something like 2%. 

Microsoft wouldn't have put so much into that Career Mode if they didn't have a reason to believe a vast majority of their userbase wants something like that. The realistic number is MUCH higher than what Navigraph can sample. The Navigraph survey targets a very small percentage of sim users. 

OK... Hang with me here... (no Purism or Elitism or any other -isms here)... This kind of boils down to what I think is true:

- Without taking away merits of either sim, MSFS intentionally targets casual gamers, thus GamePass, consoles, etc... It doesn't mean that sim can't be used for more "serious" stuff - procedure flows, etc... It just means that it has a lot of appeal to the casual segment of the market. I am willing to bet MY CL650 license 😉 that X-Plane has a lot less casual users. Therefore, the numbers of MSFS users vs XP users is likely a lot more skewed than the survey suggests. All the XBox players that didn't take the survey? Add them on top of the ones who did. Granted, XP also has a large percentage of users who didn't take that survey, but in sheer numbers, there are lot less. Realistically speaking, having taken a Stats course in college, I know that a sample size of 42,000 respondents means absolutely nothing in terms of a true picture of the market. As a matter of fact, most of these survey results would fail simple statistical tests and be considered "statistically insignificant". Am I making sense here? 

- Considering above, I also wouldn't postulate that "not that many people are moving away from MSFS" - if you take a deeper dive into the more "core simmer" social media presence, even YouTube has so many content creators saying they haven't really given XP a chance before but now that they have, they actually really like it. For example, some real-world Airbus pilot (forgot his name, I don't remember those things well), said that based on his experience in the A320, his recent Toliss usage clearly made say that it just "feels a lot more like the real thing in terms of response" than what he has seen in MSFS... So, I wouldn't underestimate the number of people switching, or at least using BOTH sims instead of just one. And as XP makes strides in development, especially with the upcoming Next Gen scenery they are working on, I can only see XP marketshare growing against MSFS, because realistically? I think MSFS has tapped what there was as far as userbase. It won't get that much larger than what it is now. XP? We have yet to see, but I have a feeling, the userbase of XP has PLENTY of room to grow. 

Yeah, man. LOTS of good stuff in here and we’re pretty much in alignment. 🤙

It may be that I wasn’t clear enough in re XP vs MSFS. What I was trying to get across is that a small percentage of players adding XP to their collection doesn’t necessarily mean they no longer enjoy MSFS. 

We all know that XP excels at many things, and (IMHO) it’s rather like Ford vs Chevy, where it’s more a matter of preference than anything.

I.e., I don’t subscribe to the idea that MSFS has so many more users because it’s a “better” sim. It’s far more complicated than that, of course. 🤙

What I think is GREAT tho, is that there are undoubtedly people who never would’ve picked up flight sim at all if it weren’t for the buzz around MSFS, and at least some of them are discovering XP and either finding it worthwhile, or more aligned with their interests. 😎

5 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

What I think is GREAT tho, is that there are undoubtedly people who never would’ve picked up flight sim at all if it weren’t for the buzz around MSFS, and at least some of them are discovering XP and either finding it worthwhile, or more aligned with their interests. 😎

I am one of those. It was in the middle of the COVID lockdown and I didn't have anything better to do with my time, so I picked up MSFS2020 on the day of release and so it began. I then picked up P3D5 and XP11. But... reality is that if I didn't dive DEEP into MSFS 2020 when I did, I wouldn't have had my pilot license and instrument rating today. 

7 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I’ll clarify that the rate of improvement of v11 vs v12 is really what I’m driving at here. 

Better clarity.  I did hear a rumor that if it wasn't for X-Plane mobile, X-Plane 9 would've been the last version of X-Plane.  X-Plane mobile funded X-Plane 10.  

7 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

he Navigraph survey is an island unto itself. Highly skewed sample that is clearly misaligned with the broader market. 

I don't put too much faith in surveys.  But I do think they're a not a bad reference.

7 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I’m sure the “millions” figure includes every single download ever, and even then it’s artificially inflated by Game Pass, etc. 

That, I would believe.

7 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I doubt very many people are outright abandoning MSFS for X-Plane. I’m pretty sure the inverse is true, also.

Many?  No.  Some?  Yes.  I was one of them.  Most are adding X-Plane to their flight sim collection.  

7 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

And, to whatever degree this survey is actually representative, we see that XP user numbers are stable.

I think it depends on how you read the numbers.  The percentages look stable, but it's a safe bet that many thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people have come in to flight simming.  The percentages could very well have stayed the same with more people coming in.  Usually, add on sales taper off after a few years.  The Challenger is still selling as good as it was in its first year, due to more people getting into flight sims.

 

Goran - kinda off topic. Do you have any idea if IXEG 737 is planning an update to ditch Gizmo? It's the only aircraft I use often that tethers me to Gizmo now that CL650 has moved past it... Oh and Leading Edge DC-3 too!

10 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

The Navigraph survey is an island unto itself. Highly skewed sample that is clearly misaligned with the broader market. 

Steam stats and the new navigraph 2026 survey align pretty well:

Steam MSFS2024: 4,077/8057 = 50%, Navigraph = 45%

Steam MSFS2020: 3,165/8057 = 39%, Navigraph = 28%

Steam XP12: 815/8057 = 10%, Navigraph = 11%

So I think the "switching from XX flight sim" that just dropped are probably safe.

4 hours ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

Goran - kinda off topic. Do you have any idea if IXEG 737 is planning an update to ditch Gizmo? It's the only aircraft I use often that tethers me to Gizmo now that CL650 has moved past it... Oh and Leading Edge DC-3 too!

Gizmo is being phased out slowly. The problem with Gizmo at the moment, is that the 737 was coded using Gizmo (it's a customized coding language, as well as a DRM), so to get rid of the Gizmo DRM requires an entire code rewrite of the 737.  Gizmo translates LUA to work with X-Plane.  

Add ons like the Challenger and the TBM are coded completely using C++, and now Saso has gone to freakish lengths and coded the Challenger using C++ and Rust.  (No end to his talents!). So those add ons were much easier to migrate away from Gizmo.

The IXEG 737 is quite deep in the systems department, so making the switch to C++ is no small task.  Tom could do it.  It's just going to take some time.  As far as I know, it's planned.

The DC3 is getting a V3 (I never thought I would be using that term for my own add ons) treatment, coded completely in C++.  I started working on that in early January, right after I finished the TBM 3D and texture work.  It's gotten significant enhancements and realism added to it.  I feel weird saying it's a study level DC3, because we associate study level to airliners and other jets, but I've gotten it to be extremely close to the real thing using maintenance manuals and flow diagrams.

Edited April 22Apr 22 by GoranM

IXEG/Tom needs to finish rewriting the XP documentation for LR. (read as: make XP's expansive API more accessible to future devs). My wager's on a 737 rewrite happening in XP13...

5 hours ago, GoranM said:

Gizmo is being phased out slowly. The problem with Gizmo at the moment, is that the 737 was coded using Gizmo (it's a customized coding language, as well as a DRM), so to get rid of the Gizmo DRM requires an entire code rewrite of the 737.  Gizmo translates LUA to work with X-Plane.  

Add ons like the Challenger and the TBM are coded completely using C++, and now Saso has gone to freakish lengths and coded the Challenger using C++ and Rust.  (No end to his talents!). So those add ons were much easier to migrate away from Gizmo.

The IXEG 737 is quite deep in the systems department, so making the switch to C++ is no small task.  Tom could do it.  It's just going to take some time.  As far as I know, it's planned.

The DC3 is getting a V3 (I never thought I would be using that term for my own add ons) treatment, coded completely in C++.  I started working on that in early January, right after I finished the TBM 3D and texture work.  It's gotten significant enhancements and realism added to it.  I feel weird saying it's a study level DC3, because we associate study level to airliners and other jets, but I've gotten it to be extremely close to the real thing using maintenance manuals and flow diagrams.

Thank you for a very in-depth explanation. I am not versed in development these days (back in early 90s, I used to know C and Pascal - two obscure things that have gone away a long time ago)... Had NO idea that Gizmo was more than just DRM. That makes sense now. 

Good to hear about the DC-3 getting a new version eventually! And DC-3 IS an Airliner to me! 🙂 An early one, but... in the 1940s those WERE the airliners people actually flew on. 

12 hours ago, GoranM said:

The percentages look stable, but it's a safe bet that many thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people have come in to flight simming.  The percentages could very well have stayed the same with more people coming in.  Usually, add on sales taper off after a few years.  The Challenger is still selling as good as it was in its first year, due to more people getting into flight sims.

This had occurred to me later on specifically in relation to XP and that the survey DOUBLED its sample size this time. 

Thanks for bringing it up! 🙏

and congrats on Challenger continuing on with such a high level of success!!🎉

p..s.: how’s the TBM coming along 😉