Living Room Rocker
I am guessing you are being hypothetical here, Mike, because you cannot buy an upgrade at a retail store.  (An upgrade being, for instance, X2 Pro. to X3 Pro. at the reduced price of $149.)  If you want to buy an upgrade, you have to purchase that directly from the Cakewalk Store.  That is, only full versions of SONAR (or Cakewalk products for that matter) are available at retail stores, not upgrades. Kind regards, Living Room Rocker

I bought my upgrade from X1e Producer to X3 Producer from Sweetwater. :)

Living Room Rocker

mike_mccueHi Andrew, Can you clarify? If someone buys or has purchased an upgrade to X2 at a retail outlet can they qualify for the free X3 upgrade or does this only apply to a free standing, complete version of X3?  Thanks.  best regards,mike

I am guessing you are being hypothetical here, Mike, because you cannot buy an upgrade at a retail store.  (An upgrade being, for instance, X2 Pro. to X3 Pro. at the reduced price of $149.)  If you want to buy an upgrade, you have to purchase that directly from the Cakewalk Store.  That is, only full versions of SONAR (or Cakewalk products for that matter) are available at retail stores, not upgrades. Kind regards, Living Room Rocker

http://www.sweetwater.com.../detail/SonarX3PupX2P/

Sweetwater is one exception and possibly the only one. Generally Living Room Rocker is right.   

sharke

WallyG

mike_mccue
It also seems like an obvious way for Cakewalk to help stores clear out their old stock of boxed copy software.
 
It seems like an effective way for Cakewalk to help the stores they partner with while helping some customers as well.
 
IMO, I think it's a very good policy...
 

Last year I bought a boxed X1 at (close to) retail and upgraded to X2 for free. Seemed fair to me.
 
Walt

 
Don't think I paid full retail for X1 though. I'm pretty sure B&H Photo Video were selling it for $100 off. 

I should have defined "close to". I can usually get 15 to 20% off the retail price depending on how many toys, I mean tools I'm buying.
 
Walt
 

Offering a free upgrade from X-2 to X-3 to a very recent purchaser of X-2 is way beyond fair. It amazes me we get anything for free. X-3b was a free patch. All the people that made X-3b were being paid to work on it therefore Cakewalk loses money on X-3b because its free. If they put out a few more patches for X-3 theyre hoping to sell enough copies of X-3 to pay the employees that worked on the new patches and the other cakewalk products. For a company to survive they have to make money, simple as that! I own my own business so I look at things differently. When X-3 sales slow down Cakewalk is still having to pay all the same employees every week. So, do they keep making free patches to give to people or do they make X-4 and charge an upgrade price to bring in more money to pay the employees and payroll taxes and all the rest of the bills?
One thing I've learned about buying software is there's always a new version in the works. Do your research before buying a full ver of anything in software because an upgrade is probably coming fairly soon. Too much free stuff equals going out of business and I for one would like to see Cakewalk stick around.

John
Sweetwater is one exception and possibly the only one. Generally Living Room Rocker is right.   

Not sure how true that is internationally at least. I know I discussed X2 upgrade with my (very local and very physical) local store and that wasn't any problem, it was distributed by Roland Scandinavia. Some guys in UK seems to have more local places to buy as well. So if things haven't changed with X3 (and it might have been given the Gibson deal for example) there should be plenty of places purchasing upgrades. Here's another Swedish one for X2 that I frequently buy from (not Cakewalk stuff though).
 
http://www.emusic.se/prod...-X2-Producer-Upgrade-3
 
More on topic - I really don't see Cakewalk being unfair here.

Personally, I don't think CW's upgrade costs have ever been unfair. 
 

Some people were itchin' (with a B) because the upgrade to X3 Pro was $149.
 
If you're not making money with it....it is a hobby.  If you can't afford your hobby you need another hobby.
 
If you do make money with it, you should be happy to pay for the upgrade.  I do make money with music...have made my living with music for the past 36 years.  I had no problem paying for the upgrade...as others have said, a company that doesn't make money will not survive....and this includes Cakewalk.
 
As for my hobby....I like to fish.  But I don't have a $55K Ranger Comanche bass boat.
 
 

As much as I'd like to make a living at it, it IS still a hobby for me. But it's more than that, it's a PASSION, and I gladly laid down my $199 to upgrade to X3 from X1e. And I'm so glad I did! X3 has been amazing and inspiring so far!

Lee, don't feel bad.  This seems to happen every upgrade when Cake makes offers you can't refuse to new customers who would feel cheated that they bought X2 and a month later X3 comes out.  W/o the discount that would be a pretty ragged deal.
 
@