MSFS planes

[oregonboy109]

First off.Im not a person who builds plane for xplane so if this is a dumb question then sorry, but I saw a youtube video yesterday of some FSX aircraft and they are pretty incredible. So why is it that we dont' have xplane aircraft of this level of detail, and I know xplane is going in the right direction with the CRJ. But the amount of the great payware planes in FSX amazes me.

Thanks for the info

[FlorianR]

MSFS has been successful on the market for a longer time than x-plane, giving them a "head-start". Also, high-quality MSFS development teams usually consist of more than 5 members, allowing them to work faster and release products in more detail in less time.

Quoting the PMDG home page, "PMDG is a global business with employees and contractors working in Canada, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Russia, South Africa and the United States. "

X-Plane is very close to getting there, if were are not already .

[Jack Skieczius]

There has been a lot of talk about X-Plane vs FSX and such recently. some ask why we dont have planes like FSX yet in X-Plane. It has even been settled that X-Plane has the capability to have planes like we see in FSX and even better. In my opinion, as a developer for X-Plane myself and a former user of FSX, I think it comes down to the total profit you can make from developing a plane.

PMDG for example is a big team of developers, not just one or two people like most of X-Planes teams. With that each person would expect to gain profit from developing one plane, say the MD-11. In the FSX world, everyone can profit from such since their user base is exponentially larger then X-Planes, hence they have the potential to sell more copies.

Lets put in my own experience here, and say, i spent two years as one person developing the Q400 for X-plane, and i will be only luck if i make any money justifying my own amount of hours i dedicated to developing it. Many factors go into what makes something sell so this may not be the best example but i am sure many X-Plane developers don't make planes as their full time job yet.

I am hopefully though, cause over those two years, i have seen X-Plane grow and mature, and i am sure that will continue to be the trend. As the user base grows for X-plane, developers will start to see more profit, hence they should start to feel more confident in taking the time out to grow a successful development team that can make top quality, PMDG or better products.

We just need to let time tell. I hope that someday we can all look back at conversations like this and say, "man remember those days, they came and went and now things are better"

[Nicola_M]

I could be wrong here, but I think it's not just about the size of the companies, but who's in them.

Most of the people making planes for xplane seem to start off doing it in their own time as one-man-bands as a labour of love and wanting a particular plane. When it comes to finding someone with the skills they lack, they have to be lucky and find someone who'll help. But PMDG would have just gone out and hired the team already.

Two cases in point:  Javier, whose CRJ almost was cancelled because he needed to find someone like Philipp with the relevant skills and time, and then R*v**** who can spit planes out at an astonishing rate, but who can't make cockpits for toffee.

Both of these show why development of the level of planes we're getting now has been so slow, is because there are few people who can make planes of this complexity from start to finish without needing to rely on another for key areas.

This is why there are a number of small teams - Javier & Philipp, Arno & Khamsin, Jack & Joe, Goran & Theo.  I've noticed that in nearly all cases, each does one aspect of the build, while the other does another part.

I think we have our own PMDG in these guys.

[LA]

I could be wrong here, but I think it's not just about the size of the companies, but who's in them.

Most of the people making planes for xplane seem to start off doing it in their own time as one-man-bands as a labour of love and wanting a particular plane. When it comes to finding someone with the skills they lack, they have to be lucky and find someone who'll help. But PMDG would have just gone out and hired the team already.

Two cases in point:  Javier, whose CRJ almost was cancelled because he needed to find someone like Philipp with the relevant skills and time, and then R*v**** who can spit planes out at an astonishing rate, but who can't make cockpits for toffee.

Both of these show why development of the level of planes we're getting now has been so slow, is because there are few people who can make planes of this complexity from start to finish without needing to rely on another for key areas.

This is why there are a number of small teams - Javier & Philipp, Arno & Khamsin, Jack & Joe, Goran & Theo.  I've noticed that in nearly all cases, each does one aspect of the build, while the other does another part.

I think we have our own PMDG in these guys.

PMDG as well as many others for MSFS started out the same way. Small and for free. It's just 10 years earlier. PMDG actually started with FLY, as did RealAir.

LA

[oregonboy109]

do you guys think we will see groups and company's like PMDG in xplane. I know there is a team of people working on a B737 classic but its not a company like PMDG.

[eaglewing7]

It is extremely unlikely until X-Plane gets a much wider audience, and not only that, but when the payware market within X-Plane begins accepting aircraft with a price of over $70 to be the norm.  Javier's CRJ is priced at $60, which initially caused a stir, but has become more accepted as time goes on, if someone like PDMG comes along and makes a plane thinking they can sell it for $100 in the X-Plane market, they are likely going to give up quickly because they will not see the kind of returns they enjoy in the MSFS market.

[Goran_M]

PMDG are just people who have dedicated a large amount of time in refining their craft, marketing, sales strategy, etc...

It's kinda funny how some treat them as if they are supernatural and untouchable.

Credit where it's due, they have worked extremely hard in producing some excellent models.

To answer your question, it's not a question of "IF" we will ever see the x plane equivalent of PMDG...but "WHEN".  

TBH with you, I think IXEG will be it.  And head to head, so far, the IXEG 737 exceeds the PMDG 737.

But let's wait and see what the final results will bring.

[Lukasz]

Nicola is right.

From my estimates, it takes at least 4 people to make a top aircraft, in a reasonable amount of time:

- texture artist

- 3D artist/animator

- custom systems programmer

- flight model engineer/magician

Add to that research before and testing after a/c is done, which are time consuming and tedious jobs by themselves, but can and should be performed by each "team member" with regards to his/her part of work on the project. I can imagine large projects, like airliners, which could use two 3D artists and two programmers, so that makes the team even bigger. Add to the mix some real pilots, who understand how X-Plane works or are willing to help anyway and suddenly you have a whole large team.

Sure, it's possible to be a one man band and do it all with one pair of hands, but that requires much more time, especially when one has other daily job and family commitments. Assigning two of these tasks to one person also means more time in development.

Then there is a matter of money. It's customary, that X-Plane addon aircraft sit in a specified price range, but that has some side effects. It's either the low quality (because no one would pay more anyway) or looooong development time (because if the money would to be split between more team members, they wouldn't be paid accordingly for their skills and time needed for the job).

It's not a question if we have PMDG quality capability - because we do, and maybe even more. It's a question if we have as much fan base (= number of prospective buyers), as MSFS. You can sell 1 a/c for 40$ or 4 for 10$, same quality, same dev time, but the price will be obviously lower. Or you could keep the price up, but have more people working on next project, which means shorter time between releases. For a comparison, have a look at R/C models scene, compare prices and keep in mind, that even flying without crashing costs additional money (spares etc.).

X-Plane is growing rapidly, which is cool, but have your own thoughts on the topic, before asking "when it will be released?" or "what will be the price?" next time.

[Leen de Jager]

Some years ago I got interested in X-Plane and these days its my favorit sim.

I am happy to see airplanes for X-Plane improve so rapidly and I am convinced we can expect them to improve much more.

The X-Plane market however is not quiet as big as the MSFS market wich makes it hard to invest in developments.

Higher aircraft-prices like the CRJ by Rollon are quiet new in the X-Plane community and I expect the prices for X-Plane aircraft to stay on a much higer level in future.

Most planes for X-Plane have been made by only one or two people.

Planes sold for MSFS are mostly made by complete teams of sometimes ten or more guys.

Now I am just speaking about planes , but I can imagine "payware" skins (texturesets) will be available for X-Plane too.

Probably a strange phenomena for X-Plane folks , in MSFS-world its quiet normal buying an airliner for 65 dollars or more and buying a complete set of of "liveries" for another 65 dollars or so.

In this case we are not speaking of a team of aircraft-builders we are talking about a team of eight  professional texture-artists within one company, making commercial paints only.

Selling skins can be real profitable bizz.

There will be a time (shortly ? !) this will be normal in X-Plane-world as well.

Leen de Jager (quality cotroller/technical advisor at McPhatstudios)