Ever since I dipped my feet in the Marketplace waters, I slowly started to notice a very significant price/quality gap separating the less airplanes (many of which are derided as trash or outright scams) and the consensus best planes; you know, ones featured in our Top 10, overwhelmingly glowing reviews, and also the most expensive add-ons in the game.
Okay, so far, so logical, you get what you pay for, right? But that brings about a bit of food for thought…
Whenever the big money, top quality add-ons are discussed, their pricing is rightfully understood as a matter of fact. We won’t argue why the A2A Comanche costs 60 euros, the PMDG 777 80 euros, and so on. But nearly every time anything below such forensic level of craft is reviewed, you get a variation of “this airplane should be free”. It works as a way to disparage a Captain Sim 747 reskin, sure, but even the Deimos and LVFRs get that shade thrown at them. Why is that?
Even if you, unlike me, aren’t on Xbox, it feels a bit exaggerated. The better regarded freeware planes are 1) very few (FBW a320, Headwind a330, F22 demo version and Got Friends? Feel free to correct me) and
2) widely considered inferior to the best payware equivalents.
Maybe the sad reality is that there’s no middle ground between the best stuff and the affordable stuff?
Even the included inibuilds airliners, which I still like a lot, seem so full of little bugs that completely break your confidence. Black screens in any medium/large airport, systems freezing completely, the AP trying to throw the plane into the ground when you try to turn on reading lights that don’t even work.
It really seems like the only way to have a trouble free experience is to give up and scrounge up the ~80 bucks for a PMDG, A2A (or Fenix, if on PC) craft and finally just enjoy the sim. Very good GA planes can be had for a lot less (see the ongoing sale), but what’s the point when low altitude flying looks like Super Nes’ Pilotwings outside of a $3000+ PC rig?
Sorry for the rant at the end there. I really want to hear your thoughts!
It’s been a long time since the Super Nes, innit? WRT the scenery on Xbox, maybe 2024 is an improvement on that front, right now I feel very little joy flying anywhere under 25000 feet
I don’t know, I thought it looked quite excellent on XBSX and looks excellent on a 7800X3D/4080S. I like the Comanche and FSR500 and like the Carenado 182RG and the FF Bonanza V35 just fine too. I’ve spent money on some ■■■■■ I’ve parked away forever too, feel burnt at $9 or $30 either way. Ate many a bad meal for far more.
I will say ‘bargain shopping’ to bargain shop(if the money isn’t just disposable like a $50 hand of blackjack), I will say skipping what you REALLY WANT once or twice over time ends up costing more. Feeling an urge and buying a $15 something because $50 was ‘too much’ tends to multiply to where you sail right past it either supposedly saving or just not waiting it out long term for a sale. Then you take the inevitable $50 plunge and the $75 worth of weekly ‘eh’ just sits in perpetuity, making it essentially a $120 airplane…
I’m not into tubes so I can’t comment on that sausage press rabbit hole.
Not sure what the beef is, some top aircraft are on sale right now and at the same time the GF bundle bringing freeware to xbox is an absolute steal at thrice its price. What’s the problem? Can’t say that I don’t have ‘fancy aircraft’ that at times I wish certain elements were better implemented in a way that say, a typical Carenado would handle it much better-and by no means with some ‘realism’ excuse, they all aren’t automatically perfect because they’re pricey.
Just tossing it out there that the PMDG 737-600 is an incredible bargain at $35. A complete, fully-featured and high-fidelity simulation, even though the plane itself is smaller than most 737 models. No, it does not come with cargo or BBJ variants (the real -600 was never made in those versions either). But if you want to learn to fly “the Boeing way,” that’s an amazingly affordable way to do it, especially if you’re not sure you want to dive in deeper financially, or don’t know if you’ll even like flying Boeings.
I really don’t think there is a direct correlation between price and quality.
Sure, you are somewhat limited with options on Xbox so maybe you don’t see it all.
There are MANY awesome Freeware aircraft that surpass (substantially!) a lot of Payware options. The WB-Sim/JPL Cessna 152 being a prime example of perfection, anything by Bagolu, MrTommyMXR, Sal1800, FlynDive, Dave Garwood, of course Got Friends (as cheap as they could make them on Xbox and faultless + tons of fun), Deejing, VrilleAPlat, Madolo and TouchingCloud (epic gliders!) and Lord Frites’ “Scrapyard Monster” is as well made as anything could ever be! But look at my Top Free Aircraft list and you will see many (this has not been added to for a while so there are lots more now actually): Your Top FREEWARE AIRCRAFT / MODS [Charts]
The price set by the developer is just that… chosen by them. The quality linked to that price is not set in stone or on any sort of scale of what you can expect to see. See any of the Rara-Avis or Mario Noriega products. They are EXTREMELY well made, and also extremely “affordable”. Also the smaller GA aircraft by SWS are at that sort of price level, yes they are simple but also top quality.
Although there is an expectation that Payware products at the higher end of the pricing scale are also equally of a “higher quality”, that certainly is not the case. Often with products not being supported thus breaking in some way after Sim Updates and never fixed, or plainly “not right” from Day 1 even at the $40+ price range.
Basically it all comes down to the Developer (their skill, their passion, their commitment), nothing to do with price per-se. I agree that it is often a false economy to buy 3 cheaper planes when 1 plane at the same total price will give you more back, but that is 100% not guaranteed!
Maybe you want to check my recent Top Developers topic lol… that will give you a better guide than any $$$ tags you see in the stores
No beef at all. As I tried very hard to make clear, a bunch of developers do awesome work and deserve to be very well compensated for it
As a fan of airliners (no point going for GA on Series S, you can’t even find landing strips or landmarks with the horrendous LOD), the price/quality chasm is indeed a lot larger. @DrVenkman3876 correctly points out what’s possibly the only exception to this on Xbox: the PMDG 736. That’s likely my next add-on purchase even with 2024 and the included inibuilds Max, since it’ll probably have the performance and avionics issues that plague the a320v2 and a310!
The reason is that people (especially online) tend to be toxic and hyperbolic. The marketplace is full of good quality aircraft that are not “study level” and don’t cost as much either, yet they’re modeled beautifully and mostly everything works in them in a realistic manner. Just in the past few weeks and months some amazing GA aircraft have been released for middle-tier prices. There are many very high quality military planes and warbirds. It’s simply not true that only PMDG/Fenix and trash exist.
They may have different levels of detail, but I find the Carenado Seminole every bit as satisfying to fly as my beloved C414. Whole different level of workload but if you want to practice steam twin GA IFR skills specifically the Seminole is every bit as useful a trainer just as it’s used IRL. If I have the time to grind it out for the ‘full workload’, I’ll take the 414 or 310. It’s just different. If I want to work on navigation I’ll use something like that first before adding all the additional work of a very busy flight model on a 3 hour flight. Likewise I don’t want to set up a ultra complex aircraft if I only have 45 minutes to fly. I love checking the fuel, oil, and tie downs on the Comanche, but don’t often have time for the entire ‘experience’, nor do I want to just start it on the runway to save time, as I have two different livery ‘ownership’ scenarios running that are not going to ever have control-e startups. So then the 182RG’s good to go.
We still don’t really have a full steam ‘executive’ 170KT+ piston that’s at those levels, but the V35 and Mooney are perfectly respectable aircraft. Heck the SR22T is $20+ payware quality sans a few bells-and-whistles extra features. Or the SWS RV’s. Etc etc
And the CAS Cub is every bit as ‘study level’ as anything else up to the top premium aircraft, just at the level of a bare bones cloth 70KT aircraft would be. Heck for 3 years I think this month was the first time the Asobo Husky wasn’t on my list, ran out of room.
