If we assume that Navigraph’s Flight Sim Survey results are true, which I believe is a reasonable thing to do, we know that the overwhelming majority of simmers who took the survey are using the most popular sims (MSFS & X-Plane) for GA and commercial simming, flying standard GA aircraft, airliners, and business jets, over and above everything else like helis, fighters, warbirds, gliders, etc.
So, why is it that third-party developers (and even MS/Asobo) are putting so many resources into developing anything other, namely military aircraft and warbirds, than the most popular types of aircraft, as MSFSAddons.com’s aircraft-in-development list implies?
While variety is a good thing, and I myself enjoy the occasional warbird flight, the third-party aircraft market just seems so far out of equilibrium that I am beginning to fear that smaller devs, especially those creating GA aircraft and business jets, will eventually be driven out of the market unless they too start developing the dime a dozen warbird, fighter, or airliner.
The explanation that makes most sense to me is that the average Xbox gamer is not a Navigraph user (82% of survey respondents do not own an Xbox), so they did not take the survey. Yet that same average Xbox gamer makes up a large portion of the MSFS user base. I am therefore inclined to think that the average Xbox gamer has become a more dominant segment of the third-party aircraft market than the rest of the flight sim community. As a result, the market dynamics are skewed largely in favor of the average Xbox gamer and at the expense of the Navigraph user who is more representative of the flight sim community as a whole.
Otherwise, it would be completely inefficient and illogical for a dev to create anything other than a GA aircraft, business jet, or sophisticated airliner, for MSFS.
So, this first quarter of 2023 is important for the third-party aircraft market. I think it will be instructive of where we go from here. But the way it looks right now, to the extent that my observations are factually true, the XP12 team and community might have a golden opportunity for the taking.
I don’t fly XP12 currently, but if it can become even just marginally competitive with MSFS’s visuals, I will switch immediately.