I don't think there's that much difference. Why on earth would people want native mode in Live but not in other hosts? We are taking the Ableton live requests as an example, but there are lots of unsupported ones out there (all besides Reason).johnpitcairn wrote:There's a difference between
A - wanting integrated native support in your app of choice for free or as part of a feature-laden paid update you'd buy anyway, and
B - being willing to pay for a 3rd-party solution that requires you to run a separate app.
So I shouldn't (and don't) assume that lots of users screaming "native support! native support!" on the forum for app X Y or Z automatically translates into sufficient support for a Windows port of LC Xmu...
If you also take into account that out of a 500 votes (last month's poll on other audio site), over 55% uses Cubase or nuendo, around 10% uses Sonar and another 10% for Live, you must be with me that there should be plenty of potential market.
If eventually one host begins supporting native mode (and I am pretty confident Live will soon) there is still a very big target left around other hosts. Not only that, a typical producer tends to use several hosts, there is not just one "app of choice". Making an application that makes native mode available to all is just a killer if you ask me.
Also note that today both the audio PC userbase and the number of hosts available is larger than the one on Mac by a large margin, so ask yourself if it's really not that worth the shot. It's just a matter of making Korg (or other control surface) owners to know your product, what it does and why is it useful to them.
There are gazillions of audio utilities out there and the audio market is a nitch one, so I guess you have to make yours stand out somehow. In the Mac market the userbase finds you, but in the PC market you have to build it yourself.
Regarding point B: it really doesn't matter as long as the usability is good. The need for Midiyoke or virtual audiocables is always a downer, you have to use 2 auxiliary applications besides your host. Interfacing with standards (VSTi, ReWire) is always a good choice, as hardware manufacturers are beginning to understand (VSTi midi editors).
Ok, long rant but this is my take...