What's with different prices

[Ernie]

Yesterday I received a notice from MTU, that the special price for Microstudio 4.0 is $24.95. This morning I receive a notice that the special price is $34.99. What's going on?

[George]

I received an email yesterday, and another today with two different discount codes.

Has the one today replaced the other?

[Roy Dennis]

I too received two differant prices. The last one only seems $4.00 less than buying outright when I checked the price. Dos'nt seem much discount for long time followers.



Roy Dennis

[bryant]

I would say the smart thing would be to pick the lowest one and oreder away!

[Ernie]

I'm definately not impressed with the price, after just paying for an upgrade. I guess i should say, I'm not impressed with either of the two prices I've been quoted.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by Ernie

I'm definately not impressed with the price, after just paying for an upgrade. I guess i should say, I'm not impressed with either of the two prices I've been quoted.

Ernie,
When did you order the upgrade? According to Admin, "If you purchased after February 12, 2007 we are offering you a free upgrade if you "buy" it before March 31, 2007 to get your new Registration Code." This is from another thread in this section. If you fall within that date then you qualify for a free update.

Roy,
Have you looked at the additions made to this new version and yes it is almost entirely new code. How many other programs of this type do you see out there with the capabilities of this version for $40???

[Eric Whitehouse]

I think Dale is certainly right all MTU products are extremely good value for money compared with the prices some of us have paid over the last six or seven years. I am not knocking MTU as the products are world class and the support is excellent. I do however think that the pricing structures should be looked at again for people who have been loyal to MTU since the early beginnings. I personally have paid for Karaoke Suite 4 + Video Hoster 3 times over since becoming a customer of MTU's back in December 2000.
Granted I have had the use of the programs over this period and I know MTU has to be competitive in todays modern market and still make a living. I don't know what the answer is so I'll open this debate to forum members and see what others have to say. It does grieve me when I get an email from MTU offering me a greatly reduced Karaoke Suite 4 + Video Hoster package at holiday times if I take advantage in the next 5 days, when I have already purchased the products 3 or 4 years earlier. If MTU were still charging the prices it charged back in 2001 I would have no problem with the pricing structures.
Here is a breakdown of what I have paid out since becoming a customer back in December 2000 .

Microstudio
Bought 18/12/2000
Microstudio 2103 $50.00

30/12/2002
Microstudio Software Upgrade $15.00

12/02/2002
Microstudio 2.314 Software Upgrade $15.00

19/08/2003
Microstudio 2.506 release $15.00

04/11/2006
Microstudio 3.00 $19.95

15/032007
Microstudio 4.000 $24.95

Total Product Cost So far $139.90

Karaoke Home Producer

Khprod 1115 $150.00
07/05/2002

Karaoke Home Producer 3.010 upgrade $50.00
04/11/2006

Karaoke Home Producer from any prior Versions
30/07/2007 $15.00

Total Product Cost So far $215.00

Vogone
30/01/2001
Vogone 1.002 $30.00

Vogone2.007 $60.00

22/05/2006
Vogone 3.004 Advanced Vocal Eliminator
$39.99
Total Product Cost So far $129.99

Keyrite
14/02/2001
Keyrite 1.008 $70.00

25/08/2002
Keyrite 1.202 Software Upgrade $15.00

05/12/2003
Keyrite Upgrade to V2.008 $34.95

Total Product Cost So far $119.95

Hoster Software

Hampered Demo 2.00
10/01/2003

Hoster Upgrade from Microstudio $399.95
26/02/2004

Hoster 2.124 Software Upgrade from 2.014
$49.95
09/12/2004
Hoster 3.000 Upgrade from 2.122 – 2.219
$19.95
21/12/2005
Hoster 3.300 upgrade from all prior versions
$24.99

Total Product Cost So far $ 496.84


Total Spend with MTU (since December 2000) = $ 1101.68 -


Karaoke Suite 4 + Video Hoster Cost Now $319.95.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by Eric Whitehouse

Total Spend with MTU (since December 2000) = $ 1101.68

$1108.68 devided by 7 years = $158.38 per year for 5 programs or $31.67 per program per year to keep them up to date and working.

I'll bet that is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of your expenses over those same 7 years for your Karaoke business. Now if we could get those CDG producers to cut their costs down to a decent markup....we might be able to make a living on those $150 shows.

[bryant]

Originally Posted by Ernie

I'm definately not impressed with the price, after just paying for an upgrade. I guess i should say, I'm not impressed with either of the two prices I've been quoted.

I am not usually impressed by either or both presidential candidates, but, I still vote for one.

Am I making any sense?

[Eric Whitehouse]

"Now if we could get those CDG producers to cut their costs down to a decent markup...."

I think you'll find Dale that the disc producers and retailers have cut their costs down to a decent markup to survive a long time ago. When I first setup my karaoke system back in 1988 a Pioneer Laser disc was £117.50 and a cdg disc around £35.00. A decent karaoke player was around £1100. A normal fee was £150+ per night. Things certainly have changed.

[George]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

$1108.68 devided by 7 years = $158.38 per year for 5 programs or $31.67 per program per year to keep them up to date and working.

I'll bet that is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of your expenses over those same 7 years for your Karaoke business. Now if we could get those CDG producers to cut their costs down to a decent markup....we might be able to make a living on those $150 shows.

I fully agree, but feel there are special circumstances here that MTU overlooked. Many of us bought Microstudio 3XXX and found out after the fact that the program had been stripped of some valuable features and in essence we had to go back to 2XXX and received little or no use from 3XXX.

I feel MTU owes us some degree of consideration and treat us as an upgrade to 4XXX.
Had the changes been fully explained, which they were not, that would be a different horse, but they weren't. Had they been, I doubt I'm alone in saying the purchase would have never been made until this corrected 4XXX came out.

It's on that basis charging us the same as those who never paid for the stripped down version is not fair.

It's not as much about the money as it is the principle of the thing.

I have never in almost six years questioned MTU's pricing, but this issue smarts.

I hope I expressed my feelings on the matter in a sincere, non-flaming manner that will not get me banned from the forums, because I truly feel this was an oversight on MTU's part, and no more than that.

A new series number was assigned, and that is always treated as a new product, but at the fear of being redundant, there are special circumstances involved here.

If I've ruffled any feathers, I'll apologize in advance.

IMHO

[ddouglass]

George,
Just exactly what features were take out? The only thing I remember is that they made the pop-up song display window remain on the computer screen to prevent using the program for shows which it was never intended for. And that certainly hasn't been added back in for version 4.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by Eric Whitehouse

"Now if we could get those CDG producers to cut their costs down to a decent markup...."

I think you'll find Dale that the disc producers and retailers have cut their costs down to a decent markup to survive a long time ago. When I first setup my karaoke system back in 1988 a Pioneer Laser disc was £117.50 and a cdg disc around £35.00. A decent karaoke player was around £1100. A normal fee was £150+ per night. Things certainly have changed.

I agree that the costs have come down as technology progresses, but they are still getting a markup way over the average. What's the exchange rate right now? I never could get the hang of English money!

[George]

DDOUGLAS

The entire CUSTOM ASSEMBLY feature with all it's multi-faceted flexibility including the ability to save more than one work in progress at a time was removed, and you didn't notice that when Beta Testing??

It has been put back in under the WRITE CD(or words to that effect) TAB due to all the flack raised about it when 3XXX came out.

[admin]

Our Salesman sent two emails to some of you. Yesteday was his last day as he has had it with this industry. He sent the discount offers out, but didn't have time to purge the duplicates. Buy at the cheaper priced coupon. It's clear you think our products aren't worth what we ask.

Our competitors have lifetime free upgrades, which contain bug fixes only, no new features. Then they discontinue their products annually so if you want their new features, you pay FULL RETAIL for the new product.

MTU has provided MAJOR new features over the years IN ALMOST EVERY release, and the vast majority of our releases have been FREE to existing customers. Microstudio 3.003 has the most advanced error correction available at any price. It also removes the dependency on Plextor drives, which were the only ones left with hardware error correction. We KNOW there is no equal to what we have done. That alone was worth the price, but you can't please all the people all the time.

FACT IS, IF WE NEVER OFFERED ANOTHER DISCOUNT FOR NEW PRODUCTS, NO ONE WOULD COMPLAIN! If we only added bug fixes in upgrades, we would make FAR MORE money selling the newer version when it came out... AND not have to tolerate insults.

Microstudio 4.0 is an incredibly creative product. In addition, we fully integrated Vogone Lite (price: $29.95) and the live portion of Keyrite (price:$49.95) and priced it at ONLY $39.95. It would be a steal at $69.95 for what it does. Then, we offered a $15 discount to those who bought the latest version. Now I read about how we are screwing you?????????????????

Maybe we should just say here's a new product.

Buy it at full retail if you like it.

Keep your old one if you don't want to pay for the new one.

It's a good thing there are other users who appreciate what we do for them, and the low price we charge for the quality we deliver.

[admin]

Originally Posted by George

The entire CUSTOM ASSEMBLY feature with all it's multi-faceted flexibility including the ability to save more than one work in progress at a time was removed, and you didn't notice that when Beta Testing??

It has been put back in under the WRITE CD(or words to that effect) TAB due to all the flack raised about it when 3XXX came out.

Contrary to your belief, the ability to have multiple PROJECTS in the Custom Assembly window was extremely complex. We tried to get it into 3.0, but we didn't have time. It was PLANNED to be in from the get-go, not as a result of "your flack".

Plextor was discontinuing their drives, which MTU's SURVIVAL depended upon. We licensed a new vendor's code to interface to other drives.. paying 4 times what we had been paying per year before. Then, it took us from February to October to get their bloody code working right, being forced to prove to them where their bugs were before they would even look at fixing them. Microstudio 3.0 cost us about $50,00 more than expected to deliver.

We released 3.0 for the Christmas buying season. No one forced you to buy it. You did it of your own volition.

Microstudio 2.6xx only would write CDG/WAV files to a disc until 2.609 when we added BIN file support. V3.0 handles KMA, BIN, CDG, MP3+G, ZIP, WMA+G, MP3, WMA, and WAV, transparently in any mix to write either a CDG or CD disc with the same project. Incredible ADDED flexibility!

V3.0 also works with almost any drive on the market, not just CDG capable drives of the past. Users today don't need to buy an expensive drive, and MTU cut our price for our CDG Certified drives almost in half. Incredible ADDED flexibility!

We also allow displaying, and searching the My Songs list, and automatically build a list for each opened folder so it won't take minutes or tens of minutes to build the list every time when you have tens of thousands of files in a folder. V2.6xx only showed Incredible ADDED flexibility!

QED

[George]

Originally Posted by admin

No one forced you to buy it.

Right...and no one told us what features were not present, either. How could we possibly imagine that custom assy. was missing? And that's the whole point. Had that information been included in the changes portion on the website, we wouldn't be having this conversation today.

That's all I'm saying. I'm not lathered up... not trying to be argumentative... it's only "stuff".

Closed issue as far as I'm concerned.

Peace.

[admin]

Originally Posted by George

Right...and no one told us what features were not present, either. How could we possibly imagine that custom assy. was missing? And that's the whole point. Had that information been included in the changes portion on the website, we wouldn't be having this conversation today.

Did you download and run the demo before buying?

I agree, closed subject... and Thread.