Brian Walton
3) Plat is about $500 to start (i.e you bought one of the top of the line previous Sonar versions in that price range)
+ $150 upgrade to Plat + $100 renewal $100 lfetime
Thats $850 if you bought X3 Producer about 2 years ago. That is quite expensive, IMO. Seriously something to think about.
I started with Sonar 5 Producer, and have renewed at the top tier level consistently since then (including the short-lived Expanded version). I could go and add up everything I've spend on CW since then but I'm too lazy; in any case it's well over a thousand shekels, likely closer to 2. Is that a lot of money? Yes it is (and others have been around longer and spent more). But I've had access to an excellent cutting-edge DAW that does what I need it to and is a pleasure to use, for that whole time, and I've made quite a bit more than that doing the work I've done with it over the same period. So it seems like a fairly solid investment to me! Others' mileage may vary (some people don't make a dime from what they use Sonar for and are still perfectly happy with the deal) - it's really up to you whether you feel it's worth it to you, or whether you should look elsewhere if a competitor's offerings seem better or better value.
And the details are still unclear to a degree. What are "core features?" I have a feeling quite a few will disagree over what features are core.
That is surely so, but it doesn't matter a fig what anyone else thinks, since it's CW's company and product and they get to decide what is 'core' and what is 'extra'. We only get to decide if their offer is a good fit for our particular needs and situation. We can speculate on what they might be up to, but there's not much we can do to force them to do one thing or another we might like them to do.
$99 for any owner of Plat might not be a horrific upgrade to a lifetime update program, but Fruity Loops seems to offer a similar model for free. (and only $39) if you have an ancient version and want to upgrade to the lifetime update model.
See above; there are various reasons why I don't use FL, even though it might have been a good idea from a purely fiscal standpoint to have switched before now, or to do so now instead of taking CW up on the current offer. Others may have other reasons, and of course there are doubtless many happy FL users who have their own reasons for feeling like they've made the right choice.
Personally I'm very interested to see what CW have up their sleeves on June 1 - if as Andrew has said here, there are no plans to make substantial changes to the membership model per say, with separate updates for lifers versus monthly or yearly updaters, and they are going to continue building on Sonar as a complete, flagship, top tier DAW platform that can hold its own with any and all competition, then it's hard for me to see a reason to switch horses now just because they've made an offer that seems either a) too good to be true (according to most here), or b) not cheap enough and they should give us everything for free always (which someone always seems to feel the need to assert in these discussions)...