they need to learn from EA Sports how to title their new games. EA titles their new game for the following year, not the current year. Like MSFS2024 came out in November/December - should have been named MSFS2025.
Whenever the new MSFS comes out, say they release it in 2028, they should just name it MSFS2029.
2024 continues to outstrip 2020 at the moment.
I did find it slightly amusing though that Steam Charts is considered non-authorative, and not representative, but somehow the Navigraph 2026 survey was, even though it only had 15,600 respondents. 
I guess some are weighting their decision making processes based on a desired outcome.
IMO neither are authoritative, only the MS server figures are, but they arenât readily available.
I wonder if the Navigraph survey would have been lauded if it had indicated that 2020 was more popular.
I do think both have some bias.
The Steam Charts only represents PC users, while the Navigraph does have a tendency towards Airliner Simmer.
But I think both give a tendency you could use to guess where the wind is blowing.
It is always a bit tricky if you limit your reference group. F. E. I am 100% convinced if you only ask PS5 user they will end up favouring FS2024
All time peak says a lot: fs24 elitistlike requirements (hardware +bandwidth) make it much less accessible. 
All time peak was propped up by paid influencers streaming, and then others buying in, and then never touching it again. Go to the charts, and look how sharply that fell away. I wouldnât read anything more into that particular figure. If anything the same figure for 2024 is more important.
2020 lost about 50,0000 concurrent players in the first month alone. For the same period, one month after 2024 was released, it fell by a mere 20,000 concurrent users, but only had about 25,000 to begin with.
On top, all time peak for both was around release day. This said, for FS2020 there was only PC around. No other option. And no prior version that was still somehow up-to-date.
For FS2024 at least there has been xbox Console available, on top a portion of the customer base was also just cautious not being an early adopter âŠ. and there was an only 4 years old competitor from the same developer around.
All of this is hard to factor in.
well yeah, when the new game comes out more people will play that then the old version, duhâŠ.
Sure and we do not know how much more have played FS2024 on xbox at the start, since the steam Charts only show PC users that purchased via Steam.
We do not know how much have f.e. switched from Steam to MS Store Version for unclear reasons.
I am not saying that more people played FS2024 during launch. I am just saying that it is not a like for like comparison. You have to factor these things in. And not jump to a final conclusion.
Just to be clear, I belief that the steam charts provide a valuable insight on the userbase. But at the end I would agree with the CMs that there is much more to consider now.
Unless you have the same reference group you would review for 2020 vs 2024 there will be always different factors that influence the result.
Not sure if it translates well, but there is this saying: Never trust a statistic you havenât falsified yourself.
I only wish 2024 had the hangar like they had in 2020. I really enjoyed that. But otherwise (for me) 2024 runs smoother and looks better given the same settings and same region.
Most ppl on Xbox play the game via gamepass. Iâm pretty sure when 2024 came out most ppl just started playing that since it was the newest version. Also helped that 2024 wasnât a memory hog like 2020 was.
Iâm not sure about steam or PC as I donât have those.
Here Here âŠ
I hate the heavy online and gamification of 2024. 2020 runs smoothlier for me due to better local cache. Its mostly just a question of choice by now since 2024 is catching up on less bugs, but I donât think I will ever use 2024.
(PC here)
The day 2024 looks like 2020 texture wise, weâll see. Meanwhile I donât enjoy playing a game looking like FSX.
I still use msfs 2020 to this day as I found that a lot of mods I had for it went avaliable for 2024, also I do a lot of airliner flights and was disappointed that Fstlt did not work for 2024 on release. This is the main reason for sticking with 2020.
Still perfectly happy with 2020. I turn it on it works, never a problem. Huge amount of exploring left to do. So, for me âŠ. âwhy fix it if it ainât broke!â
I finally deleted 2020 last week âŠwas waiting for the DC6 to appear in the Market place and that was my cue to drop 2020.
âŠHas freed up a lot of memory! 
The problem of freeying up a lot of memory, is that you will now eat up a lot of bandwidth and if Microsoftâs servers are busy (kind of common) or your local internet is slow, things will not load. 2024âs cache is bad because the donât want you to use.
2020 basic world map is trash too, but at least I know all planes and landmarks are ready to go at any time, and I can download the WU or get the rolling cache / manual cache where I use more often (sure, I have a dedicated 256Gb just for the downloads and caches). After all that, you can even play offline (the only online requirement is authentication when you boot it up, then you can go offline for the rest of the flight)
