First my dear sir I have no problem with my ego and being completely wrong with what is most definitely speculation on my part. BUT having said that, I don’t recall FAS teaming with other music companies to give away their products. Especially in the US market. I could be wrong, but I always perceived FAS as having products in such great demand that lowering to silly promotional giveaways was just not necessary. Second, it could mean that FM3’s are piling up and laying around in great enough numbers that they need to do give aways to generate interest. OTOH and from a slightly different marketing bent people are buying them in relatively large enough demand that generating more interest Is just an added plus especially at the holidays when people tend to spend money beyond their means.
Bottomline is I’m not going to fool myself into denying that I‘m curious to what the future lifespan of the FM3 will be. I have always maintained that in todays business and economic condition nothing else really matters to a smart business beyond whether a product is remaining profitable at a level that makes it worth continuing production regardless of whether there is still life left in the product.
On a more personal side, until this past May I swore I would never own or play through a piece of modeling gear because my first experience some 20 years ago was awful and and any tinkering after wasn’t much better. However, I was hearing and also knowing that just possibly the processing power combined with smart engineering mode was finally at a point where proper and acceptable honest amp modeling in real-time was finally there. Sure reproducing low dynamic high gain distorted metal was possible in real time, but true full dynamic amp modeling is a whole different game. So I decided to take my limited funds and swing for a FM3 and can say that it has been an extreme pleasure and an impressive piece of gear. I even missed the earlier $999 pricing by a few days due to indecision and was dinged for a $100 more. Still worth it. However, when I bought it I perceived it to be still a relatively new product and had no idea that in a couple months a product was coming that really IMHO is the better of the two. Of course I’m speaking about the FM9. Now I do understand all the little details that make the FM3 still a great product and it’s my hope that it will continue to be fully supported by FAS for some time to come.
Like probably many I was slightly bummed when the FM9 came out and of course wondered if it was a replacement for some of the possible shortcomings of the FM3 instead of an “an addition to the family”. (IE: lack of foot switches and not quite the horsepower to adequately keep up with the AxeFX3…among a few other things) Anyway, I think I’ll stop here, but this is what “I” think “what meaning would it possibly have”! As you can see my mind can go down many rabbit holes in a short amount of time so you’ll have to forgive me if I make comments and let the reader use their mind to contemplate the possibilities of there meaning. I’m not one to want to spell everything out in detail, especially on an Internet forum.