Cubase 13 arrived LATE due to circumstances beyond Steinberg’s control.
Nuendo 13 was released pretty much on time, but without the customary benefit of studies from the initial Cubase release. Nuendo is usually released a bit later than Cubase, with a newer/cleaner x.0.20 or higher engine under the hood.
The tardy release was because the old Living-C store got into some kind of trouble (Legal/Financial?). Steinberg had to do prep and changes to help Fastspring get a brand-new online store setup, tested, and online. The store change pulled considerable attention away from staff who would normally be using that time trouble-shooting, rolling out updates, and charting the path of the next major ‘paid’ release.
Despite the problems with distribution…Steinberg still had to try to keep dev teams on schedule, and stay on the map financially. They still NEED revenue streams to pay all their people and keep the lights on. Whatever rainy day coffers they emptied taking care of getting Fastspring up and running, and making up for lost weeks of revenue need to be replenished.
Things should be back on track now.
This is the reason 13 and 14 have a little more grace period overlap than usual. Normally, the release times between paid upgrades would be bigger.
If I didn’t have the cash on hand to get 14 the day it’s released, I could wait (and piddle with the time-limited demo) until I’m ready. Do ‘upgrade’ keys get a grace period at all? I thought that only applied to starting fresh with a completely new seat/license.
It’s always been the norm to pay around $99 for each ‘upgrade’ cycle. Some people buying a fresh new seat have always endured the misfortune of missing the grace period by mere days, or even hours. It happens. If the money isn’t in the bank right now to upgrade, there are benefits to waiting a few months anyway (bug fixes, and more help-tutorials out there).
Not just with software, if I’d waited 2 weeks the last time I got a PC, I could have gotten 30% better performance for a similar price, or gotten equal performance for a lower price. It’s not unusual for things we buy one day to go on sale the next. It happens sometimes.
The Anniversary sale was promotional gravy for newer users just getting into the Steinberg ecosystem. It didn’t mean as much to those of us who already have everything Steinberg that we want, but for those who have been planning to pick up more Steinberg offerings it was a really good deal. Some of us who didn’t really ‘need’ anything else may have picked up some extra stuff because at 70% off it’s hard to resist!
Now I have so many things Steinberg that some years I might not have any choice but to skip some paid upgrades, or in the least scatter it out over several months. I need to be more careful about my priorities. Still, I like it better than the subscription models that competitors are using, and don’t find a huge difference in the costs of getting into competitors’ ecosystems and maintaining the latest versions.
Something similar happened to me when I made my first NI purchase. I got into Kontakt 7 (decided on impulse to explore their stuff using a gift card) for the first time and barely a month later Konakt 8 came out, and I get no ‘grace period’ to move up to 8, and my ‘discount price’ to convert my Kontakt 7 package to 8 is 99$ (same as the typical Steinberg upgrade). I have no idea if NI did anything unusual for them. Probably not. I’m new to their eco-system. I’m still kicking myself for not waiting another month. It happens. Then again, for my needs Kontakt 6, or even 5 is probably better anyway. We live and learn.