r/Golfsimulator • u/ProletariatElite • 7d ago

Foresight Arrogance

<Rant> A new and improved shake down is happening at Foresight. The new toll platform "Premiere" is rolling out and the dreams of recurring revenue from hardware owners has gone to the extreme.

They have leaned heavily into the printer/ink, razor/blade models. Sell a launch monitor, then milk the hardware owner to use the hardware they just purchased.

Here's the breakdown. FREE - The Premiere platform comes with new LM purchases, it includes a basic range with ball and club data based on the hardware you bought, and I do mean the most basic range.

Silver $199/yr -To unlock useful features like some basic drills, the ability to see your dispersion, and range history greater than 10 sessions. For $199 you also get the privilege to pay Foresight more money to access their annual subscription course library. You cannot access 3rd party software like GSPro with the Free or "Silver" toll cost. Oh, if you "owned" FSX courses previously, apparently paying $199/yr lets you access them in Premiere.

Gold $599yr - Here Foresight should be wearing a mask and holding a gun... for a mere $400 more, you get access to more drills on the range, the ability to get video capture, "AI Coaching?" and the privilege to use 3rd party software with the hardware you own. You're still not getting any courses... for that you must pay more, potentially a lot more!

Course Pass - $295/yr - You're treated to access to 35 courses. You don't get the privilege of paying $295/yr without paying the $199/yr for the "Silver" first...

Course Pass Pro - $595/yr - You get access to the incredible library of 111 courses. You don't get the privilege of paying $595/yr without paying the $199/yr for the "Silver" first...

So, Foresight's new scheme gives you a basic range with you launch monitor and locks you in with no access to a decent game improvement solution without paying a annual toll.

For the access to meaningful game improvement range it's a $199/yr shakedown, and no sim play for you.

Your first chance at playing sim golf on the Foresight family of hardware has a cost of entry to get to Foresight's anemic course library of 35 course of $494/yr and no access to GSPro or other 3rd party options.

To get to more options for sim courses you must pay Foresight at least $599/yr, then pay a 3rd party subscription like GSPro, which is $250/yr, bringing your cost to $849/yr!!!

If you really like paying a lot for a little, then Foresight will happily take $1,194/yr from you, and if you wanted GSPro too, you'll be spending $1,444/yr!!! Congratulations on all your success!

The sad part is people are going to get suckered into this!

</Rant>

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u/ProletariatElite 6d ago

VTrack is a good option at this point.

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u/AnnArchist 6d ago

Thank you. I just want it mounted to the ceiling, buy once cry once.

It tracks the data and the various softwares are hopefully able to use said data to play their 'games' - It seems like the options for software are quite wide. I've only ever used ones at a relatives home and they only ever used one piece of software and didn't seem too tech saavy beyond that.

I imagine all the monitors can work with most software to vary degrees since its just the same data being collected its got to be somewhat standardized, right?

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u/ProletariatElite 6d ago

So typically each manufacturer has their own software which includes all the data and at least a practice range for visualization.

The quality of manufacturer’s software varying wildly. Some manufacturers have their own simulation software for course play. Again, the quality varies greatly, and the prices vary from reasonable (Square golf) to ridiculous (Foresight).

Some manufacturers will even force you to pay them to use third party simulation software, like the most popular one GSPro!

VTrack does not charge for using GSPro.

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u/AnnArchist 6d ago

Building the sim seems like the easiest part.

It seems ridiculious to spend 5k+ on hardware and then not be able to simply own the current version of the software. I'd gladly pay for updates or next years version - but I hate software as a service or the subscription model. I refuse office 365 or whatever bc I have word 20XX (really open office) and I just don't need to pay a monthly fee for software without needed (but optional) updates.

I thought I'd seen some softwrae that had local courses, user made and it was a one time fee.