i worked in MI for 7+ years. i ordered the gear for the store among tons of other things, 1mil+ in inventory on average.
if there's one thing i know from selling and buying gear, it's that if your product is a "lower priced" product, it needs to be very easy to use. since more people can afford it, there will be more inexperienced people who buy it. this is more about customer satisfaction with the company than anything else.
the axe-fx is around $2500. that's very expensive compared to other similar products. most customers are ok with something "very expensive" being complicated to use. to many, it "makes sense" that a very expensive item would have "all the things and capabilities" and therefore may be more difficult to use than a $99 delay pedal. (of course the opposite is true where people think a very expensive device should be the easiest to use BECAUSE it is expensive. it's funny how price alone can justify anything to different people.)
however, if the axe-fx was $500, many, many more people would buy it. but because it is more complicated and feature-rich than other $500 products, comparitively speaking, many customers would "not like" the axe simply because it is too difficult to use as a $500 device. this would be bad publicity for any company because compared to that $500 Line 6 or whoever else product, the axe is just too difficult to use and most won't even get to how it sounds.
i think this is some of the appeal of a similar "high end" amp modeling product. it's supposedly just as or almost as good as that axe thing, but it is not as expensive, so people go for the not as expensive, should be just as good thing.
if the AX8 were to dip into the sub-$1000 market, it would be accessible to many more people instantly. for many "typical" MI customers, $1000 for any piece of gear is expensive. above $2000 for them is astronomical; they usually see no reason or cannot fathom why a guitar would be above $2000 when they are perfectly happy with their $399 whatever.
to this typical customer who just spent $1000 - that's a ton of money for a music product - if its presets do not sound immediately "good" or "amazing" through whatever they plug it into (probably headphones mostly, then their line 6 spider amp or fender blues jr next), and if navigating the device, adding effects, and changing switch assignments is not "pretty simple," based on my experience i think these many typical new customers would not enjoy the product.
now since there are many more new customers due to the lower price (as opposed to not as many new customers if the price was higher, causing the "typical" customer i mentioned to not buy the product), there may be many more complaints and bad reviews out on the internets. probably a ton more support questions and forum posts.
the bad press is tough to deal with. what about the support requests? if they are showing willingness to ask questions and learn, maybe they can be turned around.
but remember, this "typical" customer is less experienced on average compared to the customer who is willing to spend $2500 on a product. so with less experience comes less understanding when trying to support them. this means more lengthy explanations to try and explain the history of what the axe is modeling, for example. the customer may have never used any single pedals in their career, since they only used a POD, or a Spider amp, so to help them use a drive pedal block, you need to explain what a drive pedal is first. and even if your explanation is correct and great, they may not want to take the time to learn all that.
"i want a product i can turn on and play. change a preset and it's how i want it to sound. i don't want to edit anything." that was the most made request to me at the store when it came to buying amps and effects. and it's why line 6 did so well for so many years. (i am NOT saying the AX8 should do this or cater to this customer. i'm just saying if it enters a certain price-segment, this would probably be the expectation since they heard FAS is "the best." but inexperienced musicians have a VERY different definition of "the best" and "good.")
many people say that the POD line makes any guitar sound exactly the same - a strat or a les paul sounds roughly the same with the same preset, you don't get the characteristics of the guitar. many professionals would look at that and hate it. but many beginners a) wouldn't care and b) wouldn't discern the difference anyway. the beginner just wants to sound like EVH or SRV or JP, Slash, whoever. if there was a device that made any guitar sound exactly like those classic tones without any work or adjustments for the end-user, many people would buy that product. heck, some "professionals" would probably buy it too!
the Axe-Fx is revolutionary in that it so closely models the physical units, all the minute differences of guitar, guitar volume, specific amp anomalies, etc are there. many people like this. however, many people DON'T like this too. the lower the price point of the gear, more of the "don't" people will buy the product. they don't care if turning down the guitar volume breaks up nicely - many would ask why you'd turn down the guitar volume anyway?
i had many customers want to step up to a tube amp, but after demoing a marshall, blackstar or even my own diezel and boogie (we didn't sell those 2), they ultimately chose to stick with their spider amp because it sounded better to them and was easier to use. it's just what they preferred. oh, and tube amps were SO expensive - why would i pay $2000 for just a head alone when my $399 spider III sounds perfect to me?
again, all of this crap i typed only matters if a product enters a certain price range. and of course all of the above was in my experience, on average, etc. there are exceptions in every direction. but working with the top MI brands over the years as well as meeting and working with the top MI retailers in the nation, i have a lot of experience with MI in general, and the other MI stores shared the opinion of what i shared above.
it's not about a high price making a product exclusive. it's not about a low price making a product cheap. it's about customer expectation due to where other products stand in the market. would professionals appreciate a lower price-point? sure. but with a lower price point comes a different market segment since the barrier to entry of price has been lifted. open the gate to many more inexperienced guitarists and their inexperienced opinion suddenly matters loud and clear since they all have the product now.
--- quick addon ---
i think the line 6 packs sell well because the included models don't quite do it for the user. so they see additional amps for sale - oh man one of those amps in there MUST sound right for me. you buy the packs and realize they too don't quite do it. i personally think FAS should not go that route. the small set of included amps on the AX8, if it goes that route, will sound amazing. i think many people will stick with just those and not buy additional amps. maybe they'd buy 5 or so amps that they know from playing the real ones, if that. i still think higher price include it all, sticking with the usual FAS model, is the way to go for the long run. it maintains that separation from companies like Line 6 and gives a major motivation for a user to make the jump to the higher priced FAS gear.
