It is becoming apparent that Xplane 12 will not hold up graphically. That alone will most likely prove to be a huge advantage for MSFS in this competition, especially for people who don’t have big $$$ (or big storage for ortho) to spend to bring every airport/region they want to fly to up to par with how MSFS is stock.
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I imagine the new weather simulation (this is different from the visual depiction) will be a huge boon for XP12. All the high accuracy modeling with CFD MSFS is doing doesn’t matter as much when the atmosphere feels the way it currently does in the SU10 beta. It LOOKS amazing, but does not accurately simulate what the weather feels like to fly through. XP11 right now even does this better than MSFS.
Visually the two aren’t even close, MSFS will pretty much always be better, although XP has a leg up in some areas. Night lighting low to the ground in XPlane is AMAZING with the fully modeled street signs and car lights, the world feels so much more alive. I think of it like a “model railroad” idea, where you’re not getting a 1:1 representation of the real world like MSFS strives for, but more of a simulation of it. For XP’s main target audience (real world pilots, such as myself), this is more than enough, as the scenery isn’t that important beyond where VFR obstacles are located, which are out of the box modeled in XP. Throwing in a couple free addons like ortho textures and XAmerica/XEurope also makes the cities in XP feel really dense and realistic even if the buildings aren’t exact like they are in MSFS.
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Why should it be a competition.
Both sims had in the past a fare group of users and that also will be in the future.
The gamers jump from one to the other.
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Xplane for IFR and MSFS2020 for VFR.
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Good comment.
This will likely play to both sims strengths.
I thought that with the myriad of problems MSFS has had since day 1 that XP may be a competitor a few months ago, but now that SU10 beta has improved, I think that may be a moot point (at least it’s improving now, we’ll see though).
XP will never get the teenage kid who just wants to fly into houses, or the ones who fly a plane a couple of times and never play it again, and they won’t get the grandmas or parents who will be buying their kids “that new flight simulator” for Christmas.
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No competition for me, i love both…
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To be fair, I don’t think XP has ever been trying to get the audience in your second paragraph. Their main revenue income is from their professional version that I’ve used a lot in my flight school’s AATD (ironically which feels worse than my home sim 
), and people buying the home version are likely mostly real pilots. All the guys I hang around with at the airport are really excited for XP12 and think MSFS is a kids toy, which I totally disagree with, but yeah. They’re not trying for the casual market at Laminar at least with the home desktop version of it.
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Same for me!
They have both there weak and strong points.
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The timing is terrible for LR, they will release the Beta of XP12 soon and that will get a lot of attention but in November there is the anniversary edition of MSFS and everybody will forget XP12. If I were LR I would have pushed the release of XP12 to February/March 2023.
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You forget that the Asobo product and its users are not the targets of LR’s product.
It’s designed for a completely different demographic.
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I don’t think that is completely true.
While I agree with you that LR thinks his product as a product to test new airplanes and is intended for plane designers and training I also think the funding for that comes from simmers. So yes, they aim the product to a different audience but at the same time they need simmers.
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XP12 needs Google maps to even think about competing with MSFS overall
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You forget that it’s not there main target, It’s only extra cash.
MSFS must have it mainly from another public, because Microsoft sets it in the market as one of there games.
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No, not as far as the flight model goes. It is that, and nothing else, that appeals to me.
And quite a few others.
Like many before you, you equate pretty graphics with authenticity. I agree, MSFS wins hands-down there, but it does not make it a good experience so far as flight is concerned.
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Trust me I’m aware I used to own XP11 but physics in a washed out bland visuals is very mundane for me. Everyone has they’re own preference. It would be cool to see XP12 with Google maps at least that would begin to peak my interest. But overall it just doesn’t beat the graphics MSFS has to over and perhaps maybe Asobo can eventually get the physics down.
I don’t think Asobo is losing any sleep worrying about competition from XP12 - I’d suspect only the hardest core of hardcore simmers would just use XP exclusively due to better IFR simulation or flying physics or whatever. I think for most everyone else, MSFS is “good enough” especially with a lot of the higher profile 3rd party planes being released, with the major kicker being the far superior visuals in MSFS that XP12 has no hope of competing with, unless Google decides they want to use it as a platform to show off their mapping stuff similar to what Bing is doing.
XP12 will probably do fine and will have its niche, but MSFS will have the huge majority of market share.
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There’s no difference between the XP versions, other than the license. One has a dongle, the other does not, but they have the same content.
I’ll be certainly giving XP12 a go, if nothing more than to try out their new physics simulation. After two years with MSFS, and having not touched XP since 2020, it will be interesting to see the differences.
I hope they fixed that constant tyre squeal in crosswinds.
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Ah yes,…Blessed are the Peacemakers !
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Google maps use 10x the data but the biggest problems would be removing baked in buidings, shadows, snow, trees etc. by hand before creating 3D objects etc. to take their place, also by hand and that’s over half a billion square miles of landmass (admittedly MS doesn’t have all of it yet). Then there’s Microsoft’s new Space Eye program with even better imagery, that can see through clouds and reconstruct terrain details automaticaly. Personally I think it’s the MS Metaverse devs calling the shots on just how inclusive MSFS will be.
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