Upgrade cost


Well personally, given that I now know the US store is offering $50 off because of the 8.5 upgrade previously, I am going to talk to Perry in the UK and ask for the same when I come to buy it, not that it makes a huge amount of difference, but equally, it could help towards a plugin or a bloody printed manual! :] - if all UK customers here do the same, we might just get it.


…although I think it should be £50 and not the exchange rate of $50.

£359 I can tolerate more. :slight_smile:



If maxon UK dont sort out some sort of deal for 8.5 users i dont think i’ll even bother upgrading


Hey All,

This has gone far enough, its time to face facts! (or more accuratly, my tired and drowsy ramblings!)

R9 Upgrade is fantastic and worth every penny! Problem is the average Cinema user is a Cinema user for one reason! MONEY, MONEY, MONEY! Most of us purchased Cinema in its cheap and cheerfuly days of R7, and we all became happy little 3D geeks laughing at the jocks who broke the bank buying “industry” software. We were lucky enough to stumble across a budget app that was a dream to work with and could chew threw anything we threw at it, at a FRACTION OF THE COST of the big boys (LW, MAYA, 3DSMAX and XSI!). Once we installed Cinema and played wth it for bit, we immeadiatley new that the days of Bryce, Truespace, Infi-D and those other budget apps were behind us! Cinema redifined budget - it was king!

However, times have changed - but C4D’s pricing hasnt! Cinema now sits bang in the middle of the “industry” price market, and despite all of its new cool tools and switches, it has lost its one killer feature PRICE. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY!

Deep down, we all now that the R9 upgrade price IS worth it - but between XSI for £299 / $495, the financial suicide known as the “C4D modular” system, complete disregard for regional pricing parity and 8.5 US only discount - us brave C4Ders have just about had enough! Its not ONE thing, its just a while load of little things that add up to a BIG problem! Whats the name of that problem? MONEY, MONEY, MONEY!

This BIG financially based problem is going to have to be addressed quick as us C4Ders are not scared of a little dabbling in other apps, as the ZBrush and Motion Builder threads indicate. If Maya Complete had been announced at £299 / $495 I know at least a dozen C4Ders that would jump ship in a blink of an eye. Not because Maya is better, just that it would be a more affordable solution to getting the job done. As it is, nobody really ever wanted XSI, but we may buy it for fun because at £299 / $495 who could resist! Its either that or buy Dynamics :rolleyes:

In summary, Cinema is great and we all love it, but we must admit that we love it because it is kick ass AND cheaper than the competition. Simply put, without the price advantage C4D is knowhere near the competition in the current market. A situation which is only going to get worse when 3DSMAx and Maya retaliate!

R9…The right product at the wrong time I suppose.


PS. XSI for £299 / $495. If Alias can get a fair US / UK price ratio - why cant Maxon? :shrug:


I think with c4d there are a lot of ‘amateur/enthusiast and student’ users. This may have something to do with the availability of lesser versions and price. I was a pro when I purchased XL5 and price never came into it. £405 for a .5 upgrade is getting to be more than most might expect, but I think one forgets what you get for the money what with all those extra modules. You could argue that these features should be part of the core app- if you purchased them seperately they’d add upto at least £1500. I never included dynamics, SH or the toon thingy.

If you look at XSI and Maya, both apps have been largely developed ages ago, whereas c4d being a new app relatively speaking is in need of cash influx to pay for development which has only just occurred in the past year. Maxon has probably never had the cash influx that both Maya and Softimage must have had in their ulta expensive era.

For a freelance or pro c4d certainly isn’t expensive, but its obvious that Maxon are riding the crest of a wave now that the app is perceived more as a professional tool, (with BP in mind) rather than a mid range app.

c4d still doesn’t have nurbs modelling and so there’s still the added expense of using a third party app like Rhino. I think this does make c4d a bit on the pricy side compared to other apps in the current climate of ‘desperation’


That was a complete illusion :twisted:


Err… Maxon is a German company…


Where did you see that the “standard” would be 2560.- ?
There is no standard, but there is minimum, and minimum is below your standard.


minimum, according to most swiss syndicate, is around 3000.- swiss franks. But i agree this is more official numbers than reality (more around 2000.- IMO)

That was a complete illusion

pour une fois qu’on nous passe de la pommade… :smiley:


yeah i know that…if your point is that germans shouldn’t have to pay more for a language pack then i’d agree with you…but it still doesn’t get around my comment there is only one english version the US version…no queens english UK… so surely my costs associated with programming for the UK or US should be inline with each other was my point.:stuck_out_tongue:
and it would seem some of its programmed in the uk also.


Big ABBA fan then, mecha?


the legal minimum is 1210 .- chfrs a month … witch is quite ridiculous


Er, that sounds a bit UK-ish, I think our minimum wage is actually higher (not that all employers stick to it of course). I see I may have to retract my earlier statement about your average wage being higher than in the UK :slight_smile:


Every other company are making it cheaper to upgrade their products, or buy the full programme. Maxon decide to put a hundred percent increase on the upgrade to C4D R9 compared to the upgrade to 8.5. The logic to this makes me want to puke. I really like C4D but I cant stand a company that just takes the piss out of it’s customers.
I’m going back to saving up for Maya, or XSI is looking tempting.


Alias and Soft also have far higher costs; for a long time the Maya development team consisted of over 200 people, while Maxon’s core development team has been under 10 (I think it was around 4 for the core development effort).


There’s been a lot of people talking about switching to Maya but I switched from Maya to C4D. The main reason I switched was for the ease of use but another big consideration was/is Alias’ pricing structure vs Maxon’s. When I bought a new Mac I found out Alias wanted $150.00 U.S. to transfer the license. When I bought C4D I wanted to sell Maya but I found out I can’t, Alias won’t let me. In contrast, to move C4D to my new computer, I copied the files over and entered the serial number.

C4d’s pricing structure is wonderful compared to Alias’ hideous gouging. I wanted to buy Motion Builder but now that Alias owns it, I won’t touch it due to their pricing policies. You don’t own Maya, you rent it.

Just trying to add some perspective… :stuck_out_tongue:


:applause: Not really, but I like Abba more than Maxon right now!!


I dislike paying money needlessly just like the next man but…
The R8->R8.5 didn’t give you that much, SSS, texture layering, and some tidbits.
R8.5->R9 seem like a whole new ballgame (as any full number upgrades should be)
I don’t have the Swedish prices yet but if the upgrade is about twice the R8->R8.5 I’d be happy (except going 8.5->9 should be cheaper than 8.0->9 as a general principle).

I pay for C4D with taxed money, Swedish evil 25% VAT and all for the sheer pleasure of doodling around on my free time. MotionBuilder and Maya at work but who needs 'em?

(I feel my skin harden as my flame proof asbestos-nanites kick in)


My issue isn’t so much with the “price” as the “policy.”

I see the US price for the studio bundle as $595 for the upgrade and $300 more for S&T - for a total of $895.

If Maxon said that the Studio bundle was always going to cost $895 to upgrade from full version to full version (ie. 8-9 or 9-10) and that price stayed the same regardless of how many modules were added…then I would be ok.

If I didn’t purchase the new modules I would not have keys for them and would still have to pay for them if I needed or wanted them.

The problem is it’s an unknown at this point…if they add 2 new modules this year that I don’t need - will I be paying $1295 to upgrade next year? what if they add 3? 4?

If I have no use for them I should not have to pay for them. Period. Maxon chose the module approach…

That said - Srek stated he did not believe the S&T purchase was required to upgrade. That’s not the impression I’ve gotten so far…but I have an inquiry out to Rafi to confirm.


What is the US price for R8 to R9 XL Bundle?

My previous post was all wrong as I just got the prices from Maxon:
About 4 times the cost to go R8 to R9 (instead of the more reasonable twice the cost)
NO rebate of any kind for upgrading to R8.5, I upgraded at the end of June with no mention of me being ahem “colonally stimulated” for the R9. Had I known about the R9 pricing I shure as hell wouldn’t have uppgraded.
All serial plugs needing upgrades seem utterly uncool too.
Bye Maxon, hello Alias for me (just need to dig up thos Maya manuals I’ve neglected)