Scoot
My quandary now is, Plat or Prof? Vocal align looks interesting, but not alone enough, and the drum re placer being I don't use live drums is not expected to be of value to me.  What will happen if I go for Prof, and latter a Plat only development makes the upgrade from one to the other worth while. Will it be $50, will that jump entitle me to a XLN Artists 2 pak offer, as I'd already of had 1 AddPak with x4Prof.
 
It seems that Producer upgrades to new version of Producer have had a financial benefit making investing in the fully fledge version worth it in the long run, when the next big step occurs. 

I get your quandry Scoot. I've been around since CW7, always had Producer Versions until X3, as I already had AD and Melodyne and didn't feel like paying up for stuff I had. However....
 
Studio version is missing some Pro Channel features and is missing the fly-out EQ function. I thought it was a bit sneaky of CW to withhold (what I saw as) basic features in the lower line Studio version. That was my bad for not reading the small print. Look closely before you downgrade, there might be some things you've grown fond of that won't be there.
I've learned my lesson..I won't cheap out again. Wasn't worth it :)
 
For the record, this software has been good for me and my business and will continue to support their evolution regardless of what model they choose. My "Producer to Studio" downgrade was a mere bump in an otherwise happy road.
 

In the end it seems like now you will be charged $149 a year if you pay up front every year. That is for every year you want to continue to get updates. I think that is about what the cost was each time a new release came out for an upgrade. However, I never used to get the upgrade when it came out and was always getting the upgrade later for $99. Also, there are no assurances that what you will receive in a year will be the equivalent to a new release ... just that there are some anticipated additions that are not clearly defined. Seems this is turning into a subscription system which means after many years of loyalty, I will have to move on to some software that allows the user to buy upgrades when desired. It is better than subscriptions like Adobe which render the software unusable if you let a subscription drop. Here you get to keep the added content once you pay for the full 12 months whether "up front" or in monthly installments. Still the subscription for software idea will never be my cup of tea because costs will never be fixed and it is easy to update pricing at a moments notice.

You're not paying upfront. When you pay now you're getting all the development that has gone into the release which we would call X4. As well as 12 months member ship during which time you'll get smaller releases as they're ready. Beginning in 2016, 12 months from now, you'll pay again. For annual upgrades, jogging has changed payment wise.
You just have the option that you can pay annually or make monthly payments that will cost some interest.

There's another detail I think a lot of people haven't noticed. Someone from Cakewalk mentioned it yesterday.
 
If paying monthly, you need a continuous 12 months to go into the "keep everything" status. However, at that point, you don't need to commit to another 12 months. If you did just another six months, everything you get in that six months, you also get to keep.
 
The only time you don't get to keep everything is if you lapse, and then re-start the membership later. That then requires another 12 months commitment for all the updates you get from them to become keep-able.
 
This also means that, say you lapse for six months, and then pick it up again, you get the last six months worth of stuff as soon as you re-start your membership.
 
This is all really flexible, payments-wise. I think it's a pretty good system.

I think perhaps from that same thread that Cakewalk are more hoping the payment option will draw people in that don't have the full price at once. It was mentioned that having people opt in and out again at some stage, wasn't really their vision.

Well, no, presumably the ideal for the business is to have people enthusiastically keeping their membership up to date. So they've put themselves in a position of having to keep delivering in order to discourage lapsed memberships. When you look at it like that, and take into account how much they're putting on the customer's side of the table, in terms of the freedom to bail out, I think there's plenty reason to buy confidently.

mudgel
You're not paying upfront. When you pay now you're getting all the development that has gone into the release which we would call X4. As well as 12 months member ship during which time you'll get smaller releases as they're ready. Beginning in 2016, 12 months from now, you'll pay again. For annual upgrades, jogging has changed payment wise.
You just have the option that you can pay annually or make monthly payments that will cost some interest.

Correct. The annual membership is equivalent to making a one time payment for the full version at which time you now own the product outright. This is vs paying for the product in installments month to month over a 12 month period. The one time payment option is exactly the same as what we had before - the month to month option is new.
In addition we are throwing in updates as part of the membership at no extra cost. So its not like you are paying for updates you don't know about. The value here to a customer is huge compared to the previous model.

If we own it, can we sell it
 
 

bapu

Anderton

bapu
Looks pretty good. 
 
Same price but different patch/update delivery model (if I'm reading it correctly).

 
Indeed you are, with one additional point: content is also a part of what you get.
 
There are also discussions about further ways to benefit members. I have some ideas along those lines 

HOVER CAR???!!????

Coffee Mugs?

I'm having a little trouble seeing what an upgrade from X3e producer to platinum buys us? not so much what will be released to platinum owners in the next 12 months, but what now?