Announcing the Axe-Fx II XL Plus

I was just reflecting on Cliff's thoughts about the nomenclature system. If it had gone a fully Mark designation system from the start, would the list have looked like this? British guys help me out here.

Axe-FX - Axe-FX Mk. I Mod 0
Axe-FX Ultra - Axe-FX Mk. I Mod 1
Axe-FX II - Axe-FX Mk. II Mod 0
Axe-FX II Mark II - Axe-FX Mk. II Mod 1
Axe-FX IIXL - Axe-FX Mk. II Mod 2
Axe-FX IIXL+ - Axe-FX Mk. II Mod 3

And would this have been more or less confusing to the buyer?
 
Well, lets be honest. Adding Plus to the name because of an MD'd part is indeed a marketing play. Most technology manufacturers use terms like Rev.2 or UR2. Not really confusing.

Might as well call it the Axe-Fx II XL Minus then.
Just saying....

Fanboys will dislike my post, but I call it as I see it.

P.S. Still luv ya Cliff!
 
Well, lets be honest. Adding Plus to the name because of an MD'd part is indeed a marketing play. Most technology manufacturers use terms like Rev.2 or UR2. Not really confusing.

Might as well call it the Axe-Fx II XL Minus then.
Just saying....

Fanboys will dislike my post, but I call it as I see it.

P.S. Still luv ya Cliff!

Agreed, that things like this usually get a rev.2 and not a new name. I am a fan but I agree with you.
 
The Axe just makes any dick longer. Ask my wife and you will be short of the next firm-ware.
 
Well, lets be honest. Adding Plus to the name because of an MD'd part is indeed a marketing play. Most technology manufacturers use terms like Rev.2 or UR2. Not really confusing.
Potentially, it is confusing, if the customer can expect to install new firmware on anything like a regular basis. Fractal's customers are used to downloading firmware based on what model they have. That's simple and pretty foolproof, and even still, Axe users sometimes download and try to install the wrong firmware. If they have to keep track by both model and revision number, that increases the chance of making a mistake while updating new firmware.

The new display requires new firmware. No way around it. So the firmware for the "+" has to be different. Different firmware/different model is a logical choice. Given the decision to go with a different model designation, along with the fact that there is some improvement to the display, they can be forgiven for choosing to call it "plus."

Note that it cost fractal money to make this change. The fact that they aren't passing along this added cost to the end customer says more about them than their choice of product name.
 
I agree. Most technology manufacturers don't give you firmware updates every couple of months.
When they do it is usually a specific fix. They normally tell you NOT to install it unless you need to (i.e. have the problem it is intended to fix).

FAS is pretty much unique in that regard.

Adding a plus and then telling people nothing has changed except the screen and only then because they couldn't get the old one anymore is about as anti marketing hype as it is possible to get!

This sounds more like a PR exercise to avoid pissing off the existing userbase, some of whom aren't technically savvy.
 
List price for the XL was 2,999 and the XL+ is 3,599. Changing the display changed the list price $599? Just sounds a little high for changing just the display.
 
Well, lets be honest. Adding Plus to the name because of an MD'd part is indeed a marketing play. Most technology manufacturers use terms like Rev.2 or UR2. Not really confusing.

Might as well call it the Axe-Fx II XL Minus then.
Just saying....

Fanboys will dislike my post, but I call it as I see it.

P.S. Still luv ya Cliff!
I have a sneaking suspicion that adding a + to the end of the name required a hell of a lot less effort than adding revisions and crap.
 
According to the the cached page on Google from 1st March nothing has changed.
Are you comparing the price of a new model with the price of the B stock model currently listed?
 
Well, lets be honest. Adding Plus to the name because of an MD'd part is indeed a marketing play.

Adding plus to the name is to stem 9 million emails about why their device wont upgrade firmware. Kids can't read these days, just look at the fw18 thread, there's at least 25 posts about the rotary block and maybe another 15-20 that start with "since axe edit doesn't work yet..."

To claim that we need to be honest about it being a marketing ploy is hinting that Cliff is hoping people buy it thinking they are receiving additional functionality over the XL, so there's a reason "fan boys" won't like your post
 
How much different is the display? For me, that was one of the things that could've been improved upon the most.
 
At no point did Cliff say the screen was better.
Different was the word used.
I doubt you'd be able to tell them apart from the front.

Why are we still discussing them when we could be hassling Cliff in the G3 threads? lol
 
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