Subscription Renewal - Looking for Opinions

[jswat20]

Hello All,

I'm looking for opinions to help w/ the situation I'm in.

My Skytrak and JPNG subscriptions are both due to expire on 1 April.

I'm likely going to renew the Skytrak as moving up to a GC2 or better is likely out of the budget for a little while but my question lies with the software. After reading reviews and also watching the youtube video on TGC2019 from Protee, I plan to purchase the TGC software to give it (and likely tournaments) a try.

Some background: I've had the Skytrak for about a year now. As we speak, it's actually not working and I'm not 6 days into back-and-forth messages and pictures with Skytrak support (it's taking forever tbh) working to resolve my problem (just zero reads when I'm hitting balls right-handed... left-handed I was able to get reads). My research on this forum and some others seems to point to a laser curtain. I'm just waiting on Skytrak support to finally set me up with an RMA so I can send it to them for diagnosis, but I digress, my belief is that it will likely be back in working order sometime soon. That said, ultimately, my "goal" would be to upgrade the launch monitor sometime in the future, sell Skytrak and reinvest it into a higher-end device. Not sure on what that means exactly as far as time frame, but that's the plan anyway. Maybe 1 year? 2 years?

As for the software, I've enjoyed the JPNG software well enough so far. I've had zero issues with it connecting to the Skytrak and really very few issues overall. Graphics and gameplay seem pretty good. I have quite a few courses that all seem to be pretty good with regard to quality. And I haven't messed w/ online tournaments as 1) there's an additional cost involved and 2) the Skytrak issues have left me concerned about playing and then getting mis-or-no-reads.

Anyway - My main question is this... with purchasing TGC and also my goal to upgrade the launch monitor in in the future, do you believe it's worth it to continue the JPNG subscription?

Would having that software still available to my unit increase the resale value of the Skytrak since it's no longer offered to new device owners?

Thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks,
JS

[cmckelvmi]

When I purchased the Lifetime license for TGC last Summer I looked into JNPG and other options to use with my SkyTrak. I had to make a decision quickly because it was right around the time that Trackman acquired JNPG and it was announced if you have a SkyTrak you needed to get JNPG prior to a certain cut-off date. If the allotted time had lapsed you wouldn't be able to use JNPG with a SkyTrak. I remember JNPG having some features that appeared to be better than the others. However, I thought of the big picture of paying a one time fee for TGC versus paying the annual fees for JNPG and that was my biggest deciding factor.

I can tell you I don't regret my decision at all. TGC is awesome and Protee has been great with helping anything from license key to username to forum support!

With that being said, your question if it's worth it to continue the annual subscription for JNPG. I would personally think I would renew the subscription until I knew which one I preferred. However, there are several people on here that can afford to have multiple options annually.

[jswat20]

Thanks for your input.

And to your point about having both, I do agree that it would be nice to have both and important to make sure I find which software I prefer.

My gut tells me that with the positive feedback that TGC gets, that I am going to enjoy that software, so I don't know that I'll ever regret making that purchase.

The sidebar to that is with new subscriptions of JPNG not being available any longer for Skytrak, I'm wondering if having that availability on my unit will likely make my Skytrak more attractive/valuable when the point comes that I will be selling it, as there are folks that prefer that game to TGC

[cmckelvmi]

It would make it more valuable to me to be able to get JNPG with a SkyTrak since it's something I haven't tried yet. However, I would confirm and double confirm that the license is transferable to a buyer. Coincidentally I too have a goal of upgrading to an GC2 with HMT. Strictly for the HMT technology, but it will be many moons before I can make that kind of commitment.

[jswat20]

Yes - solid point on the transfer. I was under the impression that the license was not a personal license, but a device license. I will look into that shortly.

Right - I really can't justify 5-6k for even the refurbished one, much less 10k for the new one and 3+k more for the HMT. Then again, the way technology works and as fast as it advances, those costs could plummet in a years time.

[WISCOGOLFNUT]

A Skytrak with JNPG is definitely worth more.. maybe $200-$300ish.. there are people on discord selling them for $2,100 and $2,000 with JNPG subscriptions expiring June and July, realistically they can probably get $1,700-$1,800 for it as the license will transfer as long as it's active with JNPG. With that said a Skytrak without JNPG sells for approximately $1,500 (based on what I have seen and hopefully still as mine is for sale now).

One consideration with TGC is with the TGC2019 release the online tournament is still on TGC, not TGC2019 as TGC2019 will have it's own tournaments (not sure when these will start up). TGC2019 is $995 and the package to get it with TGC is $1,178 ($225 more) currently on their website. TGC2019 from what I have seen is great and there are apparently societies in TGC2019 to replicate the tournaments until TGC2019 tournaments start up, so you would just need to decide if you want to pay the $225 additional for access to the current TGC tournaments or wait for the TGC2019 tournaments to start.

[jswat20]

Thanks for this info.

From what you're saying it looks like if you pay the annual $250 for the JPNG subscription, when you sell the skytrak, you will essentially get most of your money back for that add-on/software piece. Thanks.

I purchased TGC at the sale price last week. I'm not sure entirely sure how the whole tournament thing will work out for me, so I may just monitor it for awhile once my Skytrak is returned (sent away for repair this weekend as it wasn't registering anything in right-handed mode). I will have to learn how TGC (and/or TGC2019) plays and get some rounds in up-front before even thinking about tournaments. I appreciate the info on this too.