Ooh, look who're getting into bed :

http://www.zero-g.co.uk/

Excited? Or, do you foresee confusing slim-line versions of releases, where neither company gives it all to you. NI will give you the complete synth with 'some' of the samples, the samples oufits will give you the complete sample libararies with a slim-line version of the NI synth .. uhm, making you purchase both if you want the comklete thing???

At best, these cheaper releases will make all these products much more accessible, check out the prices.

This is old news. I think it was announced in January or something. What do you mean by "the whole thing?" Kompakt is a good general-purpose sampler that has a decent library - sort of a trimmed-down Kontakt with a better sample library. Intakt is similar, but puts the emphasis on sliced beats. (Kontakt, so I hear, will eventually include pretty much all of the functionality.)

Paying $99 for a sample library that comes with its own VSTi to play the samples is a good deal, IMO. I don't really see a downside to this.

"Zero-G and East West will distribute their soundware CD-ROMs with dedicated (i.e. slimmer, not complete) versions of the new NI samplers INTAKT and KOMPAKT, while Native Instruments will offer the complete versions of INTAKT and KOMPAKT, which feature exclusive (i.e not complete versions) Zero-G and East West Libraries and the ability to load all popular sample formats." (my additions in parenthses)
Source: http://www.zero-g.co.uk/

My interpretation may be wrong, but I don't think so. The point is that to have the "whole thing", i.e. the complete sample libraries, and the complete INTAKT, you'll have to purchase both, right? Whilst the companies here have come up with a good idea for people to affordably access, experience and enjoy great samples in a great synth engine, it is, at the same time a clever marketing ploy, to get people to purchase both. Or, a bad marketing idea, people might not bother, thnking that they will be deprived of samples by buying it one way, and deprived of functionality buying it the other way.

Old news pough, but very a timely post, all this starts to happen in Oct/Nov, people will be planning a purchase soon. Anyway, I am a huge NI fan and I think the project is excellent .. I'm just playing devil's advocate to get a conversation going .. on KVR-FM