Talk:Status/@comment-2A02:C7D:3691:4C00:4937:A184:799:8D3B-20180316000639/@comment-53539-20180316092059

I think its not dying at all nor is interesting waning, the issue is its not slick and new anymore. The vocaloid franchise had an increase of over 4% which isn't bad. %'s can be misleading at times.

IF you make a new product and sell 100 units of it in the first year, that's fine. If you sell another 100 units in the following year you had a increase of 100% on top of the previous years sales. Trouble is, if you sell 100 more in the next year, despite it now being 300 units a year your selling, the % of growth is not a lot smaller because selling 100 extra units isn't such a big deal. Your not getting 100% sales increase anymore, you're getting about 50%. To get 100% you need to sell 200 units, which can sometimes be harder then it seems.

In short, selling 40,000 units for Miku in V2 is much more of a big deal then it is now, even if she is still selling that amount. Its going to be the same for vocaloids all around. We know their doing well because Dex and Daina are in their companies top 10 often enough to signal their sales hype. Miku and co are in CFM's top 10 often enough to get the same signals. At some point a product reaches its limit of growth potential and levels out. When it does it often seems like the product isn't so big of a deal in terms of what its doing but the reality is it can be doing better then ever.

So a lot of the "its dying" feeling isn't true, its just Vocaloid isn't so sparkling new as it was back in the late 2000's. We've also been spoilt in V3, so the lackluster re-selling of old products, and fewer Japanese new vocals, gives the impression of not much new and interesting to see compared to V3 when we had Vocaloids coming every few months.

There is also the "V5 is coming" theory next year, which often impacts studios. They begin to finish up old products and focus on preparing for the next engine.

The other thing as well is, remember V4 didn't really introduce much new and exciting stuff overall, GWL and XSY are its main features. This can cause problems when you look at V2 and V3 with what they did overall because the leap in what V4 can do compared to their leaps they took is much smaller.

Everything is explainable, it gives a false impression but... Think about this... When you first encounter something new and fun, how do you feel about it 8 years later? You won't feel the same. You'll have new interests, the thing you loved 8 years ago may not be so cool and hip seeming anymore and more mundane. A lot of people feel this way when they get into anime for example for the first time. Not everyone is still into it 10 years later.