printing wasn't a huge concern in those days as the software sold for nearly $13,000 USD with about $200 going towards printing and manufacturing materials. The extra materials acted as a way to help justify the high cost of the software in the eyes of a pre-internet sales business climate. When people spend more, they expect more in the box.
The main issue was the web wasn't developed enough as a distribution medium to handle full releases on a mass scale....although in the case of XSI v1.0 the installer was only 30 MB (vs. 1.6 GB today). Most of the disc spaced was consumed by help documentation and example content which were both much larger. While help documentation was electronic from day one in HTML format, web browsers weren't very good leading to graphics glitches, slow performance, and limited search and navigation capabilities. It wasn't until years later that web browsers improved enough to make replacing printed materials practical. Printing costs weren't a strong factor until the software prices came down to their present levels. Scheduling the manufacturing of printed materials was probably a bigger issue as it required a lot of lead time sometimes pushing a release out the door before it was ready to ensure it was delivered by the announced release date. Matt ________________________________________ From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Chris Chia [chris.c...@autodesk.com] Sent: Friday, April 12, 2013 8:05 PM To: <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com> Subject: Re: Friday Flashback #115 I really wonder how much XSI 1.0 would have cost given that those prints would have been very expensive in the past... Sent from my iPhone On 13 Apr, 2013, at 1:13 AM, "Stephen Blair" <stephenrbl...@gmail.com> wrote: > Softimage Friday Flashback #115 > http://wp.me/powV4-2FJ > The XSI 1.0 box set
