I haven’t seen this posted yet, but the latest community survey is open:
One prediction for the results, all of the people who reply they can land an F-35 are lying 
I cannot stand sounding like a naysayer, but I always end up feeling like the results of these surveys are heavily weighted by one class of sim pilot, and then referred to as though it represents all of us.
Certainly broad conclusions are often drawn without some critical analysis, i.e. the vast majority of respondents will be Navigraph/Simbrief users. You can only make conclusions within the context of the sample, and know that the sample is far from random.
But I did say I could land an A320 
I object! I’m not lying: I can land an F-35…Just not in one piece… 
These modern planes just pop up a notification that you “Over-stressed your landing gears” and then put you back on the approach.
This is definitely true. Because it’s self-selecting who chooses to fill it out and not a true random sample of all flight simmers, the results of the annual Navigraph survey strongly skew toward one particular type of flight sim enthusiast: a PC-using core simmer who most frequently flies modern jetliners and most probably uses external tools (e.g. Navigraph/Simbrief and similar).
That’s not to say the survey isn’t valuable. Far from it! We on the MSFS Team very carefully read through the results every year, and the survey does a fantastic job of capturing the preferences and habits of one particular subset of simmers who make up a very important segment of the overall flight sim community. It’s important to recognize that the survey doesn’t accurately capture the preferences of all flight simmers in a true representative fashion, though. Just as one example, console players are massively under-represented in the results. We know from our internal telemetry exactly how many MSFS users are on Xbox, and it’s significantly higher than the 1.7% reported in last year’s Navigraph survey.
Regardless of your platform or what and how you choose to fly in MSFS, we definitely encourage everyone to take the time to fill out the survey. The more people who complete it – especially if your simming platform and habits differ from the core PC-based airliner simmers who dominate the results right now – the more accurate and representative the results will of the entire flight sim community!
Thanks,
MSFS Team
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Why isn’t Microsoft willing to be transparent about the telemetry? As it stands, the Navigraph Survey is the “Holy Grail” of demographic information, as flawed as it may be. The public having access to high level numbers would benefit users and developers alike, in my opinion.
For sure, hence my distain for being a naysayer!
I know it is very helpful for data gathering/analysis.
Where I get frustrated is when I see other users quoting it as though it does represent the entire MSFS community, which is patently false. Then that narrative continues to be perpetuated.
Precisely the reason I’m sharing it in communities that are, let’s say, underrepresented.
Jorg has previously shared publicly during one of the Developer Livestreams that Xbox players represent between 40-50% of the overall MSFS userbase (the numbers vary on a month-by-month basis). Note that this was prior to the PS5 release, so those numbers will be different now that PS5 players represent a share of the overall pie and PC/Xbox players are a corresponding lower percentage.
Also, we made a presentation at FSExpo 2024 in Las Vegas where we shared in great detail the purchasing habits of MSFS Marketplace customers. You can find the full video of this presentation here:
Thanks,
MSFS Team
3 Likes
This is great (albeit slightly dated) information. What I’d love to see is not so much what platform people are on/how much money they are spending, but more about what people are doing. I think this is sort of what @NixonRedgrave and @Zadma are calling out the Navigraph Survey about.
I’m almost certain that you guys have telemetry about average length of flight, what type of aircraft (single engine piston, narrow body jet, glider, etc.), free flight vs career vs activity mode usage… This is the type of data that I would find interesting to compare “apples to apples” against the Navigraph results.
Like previous commenters have stated, the Navigraph survey is targeted towards jet flying PC users (this includes me). But I always feel like its worth bringing up that the Xbox crowd has made the MSFS franchise worth reviving for Microsoft, so these users are always worth considering.
We have previously shared info such as this a few different times, for example in this short video which shows the most popular aircraft and airports:
Thanks,
MSFS Team
There are many business reasons that this data could be considered proprietary and confidential.
That’s fine and dandy but a Youtube short with cherry-picked data isn’t exactly what I’d be seeking.
@Zadma I agree with you, that there may be reasons to not release certain data. I personally do not see what is confidential about percentage of people who fly tubeliners versus single-engine pistons. But this doesn’t seem like an argument I’m going to win. It’s more of a “would-be-nice” thought.
If I were a competitor to Business ABC, it would be really great if Business ABC would just go ahead and publish all their data about who shops from them, what they buy, etc. etc. - and because it’s of value to me as their competitor is exactly why they won’t publish it.
The same data that may be valuable to competitor of ABC is also valuable to 3rd party developers who could use this data to better serve underrepresented demographics who use ABC. And I think the latter is more important than the former given that competitor XYZ has nowhere near the userbase as ABC, and only offers their product on a single platform. Is this data really going to make a dent in either’s revenue?
It’s worth noting that I’m a user of MSFS and not a stakeholder so I’m clearly biased towards us common folk, but I understand that Microsoft’s decisions mostly come from a financial point of view. If 2020 was a loser, we wouldn’t have a 2024. I get that.
With that being said, let me know your thoughts about the following example.
Let’s say Navigraph’s survey reveals that 0.5% of users regularly fly gliders. Microsoft’s own telemetry shows that it’s actually over 5% of users that fly gliders but since a large majority of them don’t use Navigraph/Simbrief so they never came across this survey. A developer that wouldn’t raise a finger at .5% might now consider catering to a group of users 10x that amount. Now we’re serving a niche of the flight sim community that was previously forgotten about.
Many of us think that our way to use the sim is the proper way. But I think sharing data opens our eyes to other groups of users and this creates a mutually beneficial cycle for the entire Flightsim community. That’s the end of my essay haha
Thanks for the update!
I choose to take the survey every year to be represented, but I also recognize that the survey seldom represents the flightsim community as a whole. It is weighted towards MSFS, X-Plane, and DCS, while ignoring a large part of the combat flight sim community. I fly MSFS a lot, but I am primarily a WW2 CFS pilot and always find the survey to be sadly lacking in addressing this aspect of flight simming in general. It does not objectively cover the complete world of flight sim options in any stretch of the imagination and is quite flawed in that regard. But I will take the survey as I feel we can only be counted if we participate (and as always I will point out these deficiencies in my closing comments).
So a sanity check from their second sentence:
“The survey’s primary objective is to equip participating partners with in-depth insights.”
That’s it, that’s all. A sample of convenience for narrow commercial purposes, many of which are of interest to folks here, but by no means purporting to be widely representative of other populations. Market research and no more really.
What would a community sourced survey look like? There might be 2500 questions
“Questions 750 through 1500 deal with your weather experiences in MSFS. Ready? Let’s go!”