Originally posted by JonPro:
This means that the G70 has been around just three years. One would hope that the rumors of its demise is a misquote or a poor interpretation of some statement, and that the G70 still has some life in the ol’girl yet. I guess we can all be victims of the corporations if we choose to make that choice. Jon
If Roland has indeed been faithful to support the G70 in the 3 years it has been out then they are to be commended for their diligence in my opinion. For instance Yamaha, on the other hand, supports their high-end boards with about a years worth of support and then they basically mothball the support. The support is mostly for bug fixes in the OS and apart from that the owners of said high-end arranger(s) are on their own even though Yamaha could provide additional support in the way of add-ons, hardware extras, or even OS enhancements (instead of just bug fixes).
So if Roland has been supporting the G70 for 3 years it is essentially 3x the amount of support Yamaha has given T2 owners.
Keyboards do reach the end of their cycle but it is noteworthy when a company continues to support a keyboard or other product beyond its life cycle i.e. beyond its production cycle. Roland and Korg come to mind.
I wish Yamaha could do the same.
PS: Yamaha usually comes out with a new high-end arranger or workstation every 3 years or so, for example the Tyros/Tyros2 and/or CVP 309/310 and/or Motif/ES/XS. So Roland coming up with a G70 replacement after 3 years is reasonable and desireable. There has been new technology from Korg and Yamaha since the G70 came out e.g. RX voice technology and of course Yamaha's SAV technology. Roland needs to keep up with the Joneses so to speak and give consumers something that will better compete with these other newer sound enhancements from Korg and Yamaha or they risk being left in the dust and losing big time market share. Even though the G70 is a good sounding keyboard there is always room for improvement and also the necessity that if Roland doesn't keep up technology wise they will be left behind and I think they realize that of course and therefore won't delay the G70 replacement for too much longer.
I really think Roland has something up its sleeve or at least on the drawing board that is being developed and/or will soon be released to counter these threats from Korg and Yamaha. At least they better have.
If not, it may be curtains for them market share wise:
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