Talk:VOCALOID4/@comment-28055079-20170807195741/@comment-53539-20170808100540

Users are less likely to buy the older versions then newer.

Strickly speaking, for the most part a Vocaloids first year on sale is all that matters as its considered their best year. For example, Miku sold 40,000+ units in her first year for V2. She sold a further 20,000 over the course of the next four years. Kaito is the sole known exception so far to break the rules and sold only 500 units but brought his sales up years later. Vocaloid is a software wherein its only expected to sell some 1,000 units, though higher these days for certain areas of Vocaloid.

Updating a Vocaloid to do something like just add gwl, renews the licensing fee and brings interest back to said Vocaloid. In short, its like giving the vocaloid another "first year" result. There are Vocaloid collectors who also go out of their way to own every version of a Vocaloid in Japan. I agree though... One of the reasons why I don't see the point of V3's being updated to V4's unless they add something new is there is virtually no difference in V3 and V4 voicebank builds... Aside from XSY and GWL. The Vocaloid engine itself was the thing to be updated this time around, not the Vocaloids themselves strictly speaking. However, the way a Vocaloid is recorded is different... Tone Rion and Nemu are the closest to demonstrating the old method versus the new as it happens.