The February 1st developer update from Microsoft included a section that I missed on first glance right at the bottom with an extensive list of some of the top sellers in the marketplace. Let’s have a look at the list and talk about some of the stand-outs in each category. I also do a little bit of soap boxing at the end on marketplace content quality. Let’s dig into it!
Best sellers on the marketplace
Microsoft Flight Simulator’s Marketplace is a key storefront for the sim servicing both PC and Xbox flyers. While updates here are slower than other storefronts, the visibility that it offers is surely of significant value to developers producing content for the platform.
Microsoft did not provide actual sales data but rather grouped successful products into four categories: bronze, silver, gold and platinum.
Bronze
Bronze is the first category indicating that these products sold in reasonably high enough numbers to make the first category. The list includes great options like Blackbird Simulation’s 310R, Flying Iron Simulatos Bf109G-6, Carenado’s C337H Skymaster II, Cockspur’s C510 Mustang, and CowanSim’s 500E, Just Flight’s PA-28 series, and IRIS Simulation’s PC-21. There were other products on the list that I’m less familiar with such as Virtualcol’s Embraer E-Jets series, or Bredok3D’s Eurofighter Typhoon. The notorious Captain Sim 767 and 777 series were also listed here. Buyer beware.
Silver
In Silver we saw yet another collection of excellent options show up with a variety of Carenado products, PMDG’s 737-600, 737-900 and DC-6, FlightFx’s HJet, and SimWorks Studios Kodiak 100. Also really pleased to see Microsoft/AT Simulation’s An-2 show up in the list.
Gold
Under Gold we see Just Flight’s 146 Professional, CowanSim’s H125, and Flight FX’s Vision Jet G2 as well as LatinVFR’s A318 and A320Ceo, DC Designs F-14, and less well reviewed Bredok3D 737 MAX and F-22 Raptor. Again, buyer beware on some of those.
Platinum
In the Platinum category, the best sellers on the marketplace, we again see PMDG make the list with the 737-700 and -800 products, IndiaFoxtEcho’s F-35, Microsoft’s own ATR 42-600/72-600, and Top Mach Studios F-22. DC Designs Concore, LatinVFR’s A321neo and A330-900neo are also listed. I’m also incredibly pleased to see AzurPoly’s C-160 (an aircraft that I’ll be reviewing soon) make the list. The other big standout for me is Microsoft/iniBuilds An-225 making the Platinum category as one of the best sellers – with proceeds going to Antonov to restore or preserve the memory of the original An-225.
Thoughts on the marketplace content
In light of these sales rankings for 2023, I thought I should point out a couple of additional thoughts that came up while writing this.
The MSFS Marketplace offers a real mishmash of product categories and qualities. While many of the aircraft listed here are excellent to outstanding examples of flight simulator content with superb attention to detail, detailed systems, and fun mechanics, there are also unfortunately some lower quality options in the list too. While it didn’t make the list, developer Captain Sim has become notorious for some of their products. Their C-130 Hercules famously did not come with a cockpit or cabin of any kind. The same developer’s 777-300ER did make the Platinum list and while I have no experience with the product myself I do know that reviews in the community are mixed with a strong tilt towards the negative – this despite the Marketplace’s 3.2/5 rating.
The key point of the buyer beware statement is that there are going to be products, particularly in the MSFS Marketplace, that may not meet your expected standards for quality. As with any purchase, do a scan of reviews across multiple platforms including YouTube channels and blogs before jumping in. That’s always the best way to ensure that you’re getting what you expect.
Marketplace is probably too big to more carefully police for product quality but some additional curation systems may be a worthwhile endeavour in the future.
Stormbirds 
Leave a reply to t5s_blanco Cancel reply