Hello Captains and welcome back. I recently attended a local flying club meeting where I live. This was the first club meeting of the new year. I’ve talked about this club before and just for the sake of transparency, the general purpose of this flying club mainly centers around real world general aviation. But many members also spend their time flying simulators. During the meeting there will be a main presentation and afterwards there will be sidebar conversations consisting of any variety of topic and often times these will be centered around flight sim. During the last meeting one of these sidebar conversations I participated in had to do with the longevity of the hobby of flight simulation.
First and foremost, I personally believe the state of our hobby of flight simulation is the strongest it’s ever been. There truly never has been a better time than to be involved in flight simulation. This is due in part by the reentry of Microsoft into the flight simulation development space and MSFS 2020. This is not to say that without Microsoft returning back to the market we were at risk of dying off. Far from it, but Microsoft has reenergized the market and allowed new third party developers to bring add-ons to the market that we may have never seen grace the virtual skies. In addition, the reintroduction of Microsoft with the compatibility with the XBox console market has introduced thousands of new virtual pilots to our friendly skies. I also believe that MSFS helped to lower the cost of some add-ons which had been sold under a “professional” category in the P3D days. I even believe with the introduction of MSFS 2020, it brought about competition in the marketplace which only benefitted those die hard X-Plane users. Now let’s break some of these thoughts down into more manageable segments.
Pre-MSFS 2020 Ceiling
Before Microsoft announced they were returning to the flight simulation space our hobby was a very small, niche group. Some estimated our numbers at only a few hundred thousand two decades ago. While I’m not sure what the numbers were prior to MSFS 2020, what we do know is Microsoft has surpassed 15 million users just prior to the release of MSFS 2024 and has continued to grow. This is a huge leap forward.
The MSFS 2020 vs MSFS 2024 Debate
When the news broke that Microsoft was preparing to release MSFS 2024 it caught most of us off guard with many asking the question, Why? Why release a completely new version when many believed MSFS 2020 was still an unfinished product? Why not just continue to expand MSFS 2020? Etc. Etc. As I’ve discussed these reasons in prior posts, Microsoft stated the reason for this was due to the fact that they had developed the 2020 platform as far as they could and needed to bring forward MSFS 2024 to continue forward. The bottom line is this plan continues to keep Microsoft in the flight simulation game and can only be good for the overall health and continued growth of our hobby. While it’s too early to know for sure, I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft continues to release new versions every 4-6 years.
New Developers
While the third party development space was as strong as it could be before MSFS 2020, the new sim brought about a resurgence of interest in our hobby and allowed new development teams like Fenix to thrive and show off their talents. What Fenix has done with their development of the Airbus A320 Family of aircraft has surprised and continue to surprise us to this very day. It must also be said that what Fenix has been able to do both in MSFS 2020 and 2024, has somewhat cast a shadow on some other developers which have been around for more than a decade.
Keeping Costs in Check
With the release of MSFS 2020 and the new developers who entered the market, the pricing which had previously been established by the likes of PMDG and FSLabs referring to their products as “Professional” due to the licensing structure of Prepar3D has once again made study level or high fidelity aircraft models affordable once again. In addition, the amount of freeware we’ve seen since the debut of MSFS 2020 has also been extremely welcomed.
Competition is Always Good
What Microsoft demonstrated which could be done with a flight sim caused a ripple effect even for those die hard X-Plane users. X-Plane 12 looks better than it ever has and I’m sure will continue to be developed for years to come.
So as the new year of 2026 is well underway our hobby is very strong and will continue to grow and strengthen for decades to come. I’m certainly looking forward to enjoying the hobby of flight sim for years to come.
Until next time…
Happy Flying!!!
Jerry