PMDG says market size is 1000 times larger because of MSFS

[abrams_tank 7,641]

I couldn't fit Randazzo into the title because I ran out of space, but it was PMDG's Randazzo who said the market is 1000 times larger than P3D because of MSFS, and maybe even larger than 1000 times than P3D in his latest interview with Sky Blue.  Maybe Randazzo is exaggerating a bit, but even if MSFS were 100x the size of the P3D market, that is a huge increase in the size of the flight simulation market.  With XBox though, I wouldn't be surprised though, if MSFS is over 100x the size of the original P3D market before MSFS was released.  Randazzo recently said this in the Sky Blue Radio interview: https://youtu.be/QByw5jN43Bc?si=YAI7zWdaYgDV03HG&t=4067

The interviewers from Sky Blue Radio, also mentions that he has heard from many developers from P3D and XP that they are shifting to MSFS and that they think MSFS is the future:https://youtu.be/QByw5jN43Bc?si=L1H7kukkhoiMU3_1&t=4246. Unfortunately, the interviewer didn't say which developers he heard from that said this. I would have been interested to hear more about this, which developers he talked to that said this and what their experience was.

PS. Thanks to @lwt1971 for posting this radio interview. I wanted to focus on this aspect of the radio interview though about whether the MSFS market size is really 1000x larger than before - or as Randazzo puts it, maybe even larger than 1000x before.  Seems a little exaggerated, but then again, Randazzo knows the sales numbers for PMDG, but it's still a bold statement.

 

Edited November 20, 2023 by abrams_tank

[abrams_tank 7,641]

One more thing that I want to add to this thread is that even with two excellent A320s for MSFS already (Fenix and FBW), iniBuilds decided to make a 3rd A320 for MSFS.  The difference is, the iniBuilds A320 works for XBox, while the Fenix and FBW don't work for XBox. I can only assume UBaids, the CEO from iniBuilds, decided that the XBox market alone was large enough to warrant iniBuilds spending the time and money, to make a 3rd A320 for MSFS - that is, iniBuilds could make a decent profit off of XBox sales alone of their A320. (correction, the XBox market is large enough that Jorg and the MSFS team decided to pay iniBuilds to make an A320 that primarily benefits XBox users).

So maybe Randazzo is onto something with the total market size - it is that big, including XBox add-on sales.

Edited November 20, 2023 by abrams_tank

[pommy80 88]

Not really surprising news this.

 

[lwt1971 7,953]

18 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

One more thing that I want to add to this thread is that even with two excellent A320s for MSFS already (Fenix and FBW), iniBuilds decided to make a 3rd A320 for MSFS.  The difference is, the iniBuilds A320 works for XBox, while the Fenix and FBW don't work for XBox. I can only assume UBaids, the CEO from iniBuilds, decided that the XBox market alone was large enough to warrant iniBuilds spending the time and money, to make a 3rd A320 for MSFS - that is, iniBuilds could make a decent profit off of XBox sales alone of their A320.

So maybe Randazzo is onto something with the total market size - it is that big, including XBox add-on sales.

Re: iniBuilds and their A310 & A320 I wonder if they got a flat lump sum payment or some percentage that is tied to MSFS sales. I suspect the former? Given that they're provided for free to users as part of the default fleet, iniBuilds won't be doing profitability assessment re: XBox sales I'd think?, unless I'm misunderstanding your first point.

I'm curious if MS gives the numbers breakdown of XBox vs PC sales from the marketplace to the add-on devs. I presume so, perhaps @simbol or other devs can chime in if that's the case? That would surely be good info to have from a developer perspective to feed into that decision to keep your product available on the marketplace (and for future products).
 

Edited November 20, 2023 by lwt1971

[abrams_tank 7,641]

1 minute ago, lwt1971 said:

Re: iniBuilds and their A310 & A320 I wonder if they got a flat lump sum payment or some percentage that is tied to MSFS sales. I suspect the former? Given that they're provided for free to users as part of the default fleet, iniBuilds won't be doing profitability assessment re: XBox sales I'd think?, unless I'm misunderstanding your first point.

I'm curious if MS gives the numbers breakdown of XBox vs PC sales from the marketplace to the add-on devs. I presume so, perhaps @simbol or other devs can chime in if that's the case? That would surely be good info to have from a developer perspective to feed into that decision to keep your product available on the marketplace (and for and future products).
 

Ahh, I didn't realize the iniBuilds A320 was free for all MSFS users. I thought you had to buy it in the MSFS marketplace. If the iniBuilds A320 is free for all MSFS users, then what you said makes more sense. Having said that, the money has to come from somewhere. Jorg and the MSFS team aren't going to pay iniBuilds to make an A320 just for XBox users if the XBox market doesn't justify it. But the XBox market is probably that big (and why Randazzo is saying the MSFS market is 1000x larger than before), and that's probably why Jorg and the MSFS team are justifying paying iniBuilds to make the A320, aimed at XBox users.

[lwt1971 7,953]

4 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

But the XBox market is probably that big (and why Randazzo is saying the MSFS market is 1000x larger than before), and that's probably why Jorg and the MSFS team are justifying paying iniBuilds to make the A320, aimed at XBox users.

What is interesting is how MS/Asobo and other aircaft devs feel that there's a need and a market for higher fidelity aircraft for XBox. Goes against the common thinking that XBox'ers only care about casual simming. I've seen XBox'ers on the official MSFS forums and elsewhere complaining about the need for higher fidelity aircraft both default and payware accessible on that platform, so that's all goodness. Also speaks to what RSR was saying how some might initially come into MSFS via XBox (or PC) with casual intentions and then get interested enough to want higher fidelity content.
 

Edited November 20, 2023 by lwt1971

[stalz 12]

I've been into flight sims since the days of Tandy and Commodore, but didn't realize P3D existed until around 2017 or 2018.  I remember seeing a few third-party aircraft for sale in physical game stores as far back as the late 90s for various versions of Flight Simulator, but I didn't really understand what they were.  It probably didn't help that they were most likely stuck on a shelf somewhere in the back with other brands that couldn't pay for a place up front.  I had no idea a serious third-party industry and market even existed until I discovered P3D and that was a complete accident.

I imagine that MSFS's marketplace opened a lot of people's eyes to the existence of third-party aircraft and other add-ons but I also think that few people who try MSFS actually buy more than a handful, if any at all but that's still a much larger number than before MSFS existed.  The rise of YouTube and other types of social media have also probably helped grow the market, because people can get a better idea of what third-party aircraft actually offer.

Edited November 20, 2023 by stalz

[abrams_tank 7,641]

10 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

What is interesting is how MS/Asobo and other aircaft devs feel that there's a need and a market for higher fidelity aircraft for XBox. Goes against the common thinking that XBox'ers only care about casual simming. I've seen XBox'ers on the official MSFS forums and elsewhere complaining about the need for higher fidelity aircraft both default and payware accessible on that platform, so that's all goodness. Also speaks to what RSR was saying how some might initially come into MSFS via XBox (or PC) with casual intentions and then get interested enough to want higher fidelity content.
 

I would really love to know what the size of the XBox market is compared to the PC market, especially for more expensive add-ons like the PMDG 737 and PMDG DC-6 in the XBox MSFS marketplace. What is interesting is that Randazzo is making this comment that the MSFS market size is 1000x, or even larger than 1000x, the original size of the P3D market, after the PMDG DC-6 and PMDG 737 went on sale for XBox. For the longest time, PMDG could not sell the DC-6 and 737 on XBox, because of the security issue, which was finally resolved by the MSFS team and the XBox team. So it's interesting that Randazzo is making this 1000x market size comment after his DC-6 and 737 started selling on XBox.

In addition, I think the MSFS 2020 team had about 100 people working on it, but Jorg said 500 people were working on MSFS 2024. That is huge jump in people working on MSFS 2024 and of course, the increase in people working on MSFS 2024 must mean Microsoft and Jorg are seeing the revenue that MSFS 2020 is bringing in.  I can only assume the XBox market has also helped MSFS revenue a lot, and Microsoft and Jorg feel justified in increasing the team size to 500 people to work on MSFS 2024 (after MSFS 2024 is released, I assume the number of people working on MSFS 2024 will go down after some time, there is no way they keep 500 people actively working on MSFS 2024 a few years after it releases).

[turbomax 3,413]

so why does anybody still develop anything for other flightsims then at all? are those hobbyists who don't need that income and do it mostly for fun?

[abrams_tank 7,641]

13 minutes ago, turbomax said:

so why does anybody still develop anything for other flightsims then at all? are those hobbyists who don't need that income and do it mostly for fun?

I think there are two reasons. The first and foremost is, companies don't realize the loss in revenue for several years if they didn't release a product during that time frame. Most of the revenue for a product in flight simulation probably comes when the product is initially released. That's when there is the most hype for a product. But if you don't release a product for several years, you may not be as cognizant of the situation of the market.  I think the best example of this is FSLabs. They announced the Concorde for P3D only, even after MSFS was released, in the fall of 2020. FSLabs, in the fall of 2020, actually had full confidence in the P3D market going forward. But the market was already shifting in the fall of 2020, and FSLabs was slow to recognize this. Fast forward to 2023, FSLabs has acknowledged that the P3D market is decimated, and the market has moved to MSFS. But it took FSLabs maybe one or two years to realize this, and finally admit it publicly in 2023?

The second reason is probably the amount of time it takes for a development team to switch to another platform. While I have heard there are some commonalities between P3D and MSFS, I have heard the XP SDK is much different and it takes a lot longer for XP developers to switch over to MSFS.  Retraining software developers takes time and it's not easy.  For the same reason, if a company were developing primarily for Android, they can't really switch to developing for IPhone overnight.  And the time to retrain and also get the developers productive in the new development environment takes time (even if Android developers accumulated the basic knowledge of programming for IPhone overnight, it would still takes time for them to become very productive at programming in the IPhone environment). In the end, time is money, so perhaps the president/CEO of some development companies don't want to spend the time to retrain their development team to work with the new platform.

 

Edited November 20, 2023 by abrams_tank

[eslader 1,840]

42 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Goes against the common thinking that XBox'ers only care about casual simming

I always thought that was a silly notion. If I had an Xbox and didn't have a high-horsepower PC, I'd be simming on Xbox. Especially when getting a video card for under $1,000 was almost impossible awhile back, the cost of a good gaming PC is significantly more than a console, and not everyone has tons of money to burn on hobbies like this.

 

[MikeH99 163]

Ok if MSFS is way bigger time for devs to ramp up and bring out planes quicker.

[Gazzareth 875]

3 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

The second reason is probably the amount of time it takes for a development team to switch to another platform. While I have heard there are some commonalities between P3D and MSFS, I have heard the XP SDK is much different and it takes a lot longer for XP developers to switch over to MSFS.  Retraining software developers takes time and it's not easy.  For the same reason, if a company were developing primarily for Android, they can't really switch to developing for IPhone overnight.  And the time to retrain and also get the developers productive in the new development environment takes time (even if Android developers accumulated the basic knowledge of programming for IPhone overnight, it would still takes time for them to become very productive at programming in the IPhone environment). In the end, time is money, so perhaps the president/CEO of some development companies don't want to spend the time to retrain their development team to work with the new platform.

 

If memory serves me correctly there was a complete lack of SDK (or certainly a lack of a complete SDK) in the early days which probably put a lot of developers off from going near FS2020, I was quite surprised that PMDG went "all in" relatively quickly.

G

[Sethos 4,727]

3 hours ago, turbomax said:

so why does anybody still develop anything for other flightsims then at all? are those hobbyists who don't need that income and do it mostly for fun?

Sure, lots of reasons to work on a specific platform beyond just profits. Both personal passion and interest in seeing a given platform thrive, perhaps not enjoying working with a platform or its SDK. Maybe contrarian reasons, maybe just complacency of sticking with 'what you know'. Money is always a great incentive but doing something out of sheer passion can be a much stronger, more enjoyable driving force. 

[turbomax 3,413]

4 hours ago, Gazzareth said:

I was quite surprised that PMDG went "all in" relatively quickly.

so did Carenado. they were the first to launch aircraft for MSFS (C182 in November 2020, just 3 months after MSFS launch August 18th 2020) and never looked back. if you have to make a living of developing addons full time, the decision for which platform is clear. a circulus vitiosus.

Edited November 20, 2023 by turbomax