If you thought that Microsoft Flight Simulator was expensive at $120 for the full whammy of airports and aircraft, think again. Research firm Jon Peddie Research estimates that over the next three years, $2.6-billion USD will be spent on PC gaming hardware just to run and play the simulator.
In this calculation, JPR accounts for a handful of hardware groups, including everything ranging from CPUs, GPUs, PC builds, monitors, joysticks, rudder pedals, simulation pits, and even VR sales.
“Flight simulators are incredibly demanding on processing capability and reward high resolution, large displays, and VR use. When new flight simulators are released, the hardware to run them at max settings and performance does not even exist yet." says Ted Pollak, Senior Analyst of the Gaming Industry. "This creates a situation of constant hardware demand over the life of the title as fans chase the best experience. A significant number of flight sim fans only play flight sim. We took this into account when calculating whether the money will be spent specifically or partially because of this game.”
The $2.6-billion figure is based on an expected sale of 2.27 million copies of Microsoft Flight Simulator, which translates back to $1145 spent on hardware per copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator -- and this is not including the price of the sim itself.