Talk:VOCALOID Piracy/@comment-9691206-20130616071528/@comment-53539-20130628085143

@Xey; I wish it wasn't for Alex I was answering and was it was you... I'd be able to give a decent answer directly to you and it wouldn't be lost to this guy;s long answering based on lack of understanding of how things work...

@Alex; you STILL don't get it. I honestly don't know how to keep answering you since I gave my answer as straight forward as possible in the previous one. Since you gave two long answers since without apparently doing any further research in this matter, its not clear how serious I should take you... ^_-

Okay lets use the guy with the CDs at £5, making a profit of only £0.75 as a example of the issues facing Vocaloid. Right?


 * So we're left with $4.25 as the production cost.
 * The CD likely can be produced for 10p at the most, I'm guessing 5p since you can buy blanks at roughly this price, though the quality will base bare basic. I'll put it at the price of 10p for the most, which is a reasonable price quality CD.
 * Price is now £4.15... Good so far.
 * The middle man, the shop owners supplier will take his cut, say, 50p.
 * £3.65 is left.
 * The singer might take £0.45 out per CD.
 * £3.20 is left
 * Cost of advertisment takes a further 40p out
 * £2.80 left
 * Record cmpany takes their profit cut, 80p
 * £2.00 left
 * Factory worker staff need paying... £1 taken out.
 * £1 left.

This last £1 will likely be spread out amongst the other dozen of little things needed, like PV production, other types.

This is going to be the same sort of system with Vocaloid and while setting the price at £50 might get more sales, as it stands Vocaloid is still a unstable product. The price can only cheapen over time as the supply + demand stabilizes. In other words, Vocaloids sell well enough to be able to sell without too much loss for a product that doesn't sell. Vocaloid itself has indeed cheapened as time has progressed and the V3's are overall cheaper in the long run then V2, but to cheapen the price the engine had to be sold seperately.

As for the 1,000+ units mark, this is for a "fair" profit, not a BIG profit as you might think. This 1,000 mark is for all-like software. 500 units Kaito sale brought a company money loss and impacted future Vocaloid production because of it. In contrast, Meiko sold 3,000, this WAS a big profit for CFM. Miku's 60,000 a remarkable big profit. ^_-

Part of the issue is that music industry is the main focus of vocaloid. While CD's can expect to sell thousands of copies, a piano might sell only a few 1,000+. Music software is another question... The internet has made selling the CD's a lot easier, but technology has always been this thing with some resistance. :-/

True while "common people" want to buy vocaloids, the product isn't being aimed AT them. Businesses market their products at a strict "target audience", if it sells to addition audiences, then its considered a bonus. In the case of Miku, despite the character she was STILL aimed only at professionals; the audience she attracted was NOT her target market.

this is what you failed to consider... Now, since Miku brought in a larger audience, things have changed. We DO now have "common people" buying vocaloid. This has raised the bar from 1,000+ likely, but this won't have changed across the board for all vocaloids. Engloids, still, have a limited market. The price of vocaloid can only lower over time if the fans continue to buy it, creating the supply and demand needs to allow more bumper room for this.

This does not always work out so well... Look at consoles, the current cost of a game is something like £32, yet as a child my first console brand new cost me just that... And the games a mere £8-£15... The difference in the games I played as a child 20+ years ago though and todays games explains a LOT of why the price is higher. ^_-

Indeed you can see a difference between V1 vocals and V3... though V2 -> V3 is still a little harder to hear since most of the changes in vocals were not so apparent... The addition of triphones and how particular sounds come out are not always apparent. Yet you CAN hear differences none the less between a V2 and a V2 imported into V3, as well as a V3 made vocaloid.

Also, consider overseas studios making vocaloids have a bigger licensing fees to buy, this impacts vocaloids from China to SeeU, to Bruno and Clara, to Zero-G and PowerFX vocaloids. So they have slightly less profit. Furthermore, this profit is impacted by the fact that languages don't ll produce fair amounts of samples needs. A English vocaloid needs something like 8,000+ samples, whereas a Japanese needs 2,500+ samples. This also bumps up the price of production.

As for bugs and all... Well no software is bug-free, and if Vocaloid was that, we'd still be on V1 and not on the current Vocaloid3 version. Still, researchers must be paid so the software capabilities can expand, kinks removed. Its unlikely a full remake of the engine would be in order as it would set Vocaloid itself back 3 years (it took that long to see the first vocaloids come to beta versions).

Do note that by law, a company is NOT allowed to release a software as a "new" version unless a X% amount of changes have occurred from the previous version. This comes from the days where companies like Microsoft attempted to sell a product which had between versions, perhaps little to no change at all.

As for the characters, well, they are back to the Miku-craze and how she impacted Vocaloid itself. :-/

Still we have software aimed at professionals like Zola, Vy1 and VY2... These are Yamaha made vocaloids themselves, though VY's were handed to Bplats as a PR company to market. Not these all ended up being the higher end of the vocaloid selections. Whereas other vocaloids like Tone Rion and SeeU were for different audiences... And it often notices with certain vocaloids when they mess up. :-/

As for "its only Japanese"... your missing a huge point here. Originally Vocaloid is a international effort, the inital company brought in was CFM, though the original vocaloids getting the most focus pre-Miku was the english ones. Miku changed everything. Since Yamaha is a Japanese company, to sell vocaloid as a product aboard costs money as it becomes a "export" product. To sell within Japanese grounds is therefore more profitable since they don't have to cost things like the british VAT tax impacted the sales of each vocaloid.

top it off with the previously mentioned lesser samples needed for each vocal and the fact Japanese in itelf is easier to produce then English... Along with that 1,000 margain and that Miku sold 60,000 copies... And that Vocaloid was more easily accepted within Japan then it has abroad... I could go on here, but surely you can see why Yamaha would focus on Vocaloid as a JAPANESE product. Right. You can't be surely this out of knowledge. ^_-

English vocaloids, Chinese vocaloids, Korean vocaloid, Spanish vocaloids... If its not from in Japan, the price of product per profit is lower. English, spanish, korean and chinese vocals produced in Japan will naturally be CHEAPER then aboard, hence why the Japanese vocaloid companies are now risking production of english vocals. There is demand for it, but we've had confirmed by Internet that profit is bnot much at all for a English vocal and Gumi English can easily impact the future of English vocals from that company. This is why Gackpoid and lily were not lined up.

Note CFM have a lot more luxeries then most of the other companies so can announce all their vocaloids to be englishfied more easily...