i literally bought the prime 2 YESTERDAY and low and behold the xdj rx3 launches TODAY with serato support.
please make a move guys. even a light version that i can just use my license that i still have for serato pro. i dont want to return this awesome controller for a pioneer that has serato compatibility 
PS: not really into the 4 channel prime 4. i am no james hype 
RX3 Serato support coming in 2022 (not yet available).
My thought as it relates to Serato and Engine DJ products (Prime):
inMusic is working to takeover the industry and has no plans to bring Serato along for the ride. They’ve also have a few of the key brands under their umbrella already.
It’s up to serato to open up for more gear. They have the needed files from denon to make it happen already.
Not really.
Serato will need a seat at the table, not just some files sent via wetransfer
The only Decks they will do on their own at the behest of customers is the flagship CDJs even at that…folks have had to wait eons
Either Denon hasn’t offered the seat or Serato doesn’t like what’s on the menu (a world without laptops).
In a nutshell I think you are right, personally DJing with a laptop was more of an issue than a solution standalone is the way forward.
i cant deal that my numark nv has serato but a way more expensive controller does not after a year of release :(. using virtual dj on the prime 2 in a club i immediately get judged
In fact, P2 is a standalone unit with controller capabilities, not a pure controller. I believe they don’t have much interest having serato, as said before, Denon is going into the standalone way, and I believe they’re right, as standalone is the future.
In fact even Rekordbox in performance mode isn’t supported yet 
(they say 1 week, but still)
Some items have some features
Some items don’t have some features
If I wanted serato (and I’m out of that need) I’d see that the prime 4 and prime separates had it. The cheaper, lower spec prime 2 doesn’t.
If the middle devices did everything the higher devices did, what would be the reason, or reasons to buy the higher devices?
Buy the product that has got, out of the box, the features that you need. Don’t buy a middle device, hoping that enough guilt-tripping and/or patience will bring firmware update after firmware update for every desire.
Aside from the commercial reasons which I’ve never seen any brand discuss publicly, I think the big problem with Serato and Traktor is the effort required to integrate new hardware.
Something has to change to make this faster and cheaper. A new revision of an existing controller should be simple to integrate if the previous version had support. 
Adding Serato DJ isn’t free. It costs $149.
Serato DJ is a ‘paid for’ product and Serato want paying for it. If the controller didn’t have that licensing fee paid from the start, then who is going to pay for it afterwards? Do Serato spend dev time adding support and ask you to pay for it as an optional upgrade? What if enough people decided they didn’t want to upgrade leaving Serato at a break-even?
Serato either want Denon DJ to pay a licence for each one sold (as a percentage) or if the product is ridiculously popular, support it off their own back with a paid upgrade fee as they can be sure enough to claw back a few months of developer salary to make it worthwhile.
Throwing resources at a product that wasn’t designed as a collaborative effort may not get the return that they want. If it was announced that it will cost another $100+ to upgrade to SDJ, how many users would be happy enough already with Engine OS to not bother with a Serato DJ licence? EOS is getting mature enough to not ship with a Serato DJ licence.
Serato also have strict criteria on how audio on their sound cards are routed. This is why all collaborative hardware sport their logo. It’s a certification to say it “just works” (not counting OSA Accessories). Maybe the Prime 2 isn’t capable of delivering audio the way that they see satisfactory? Serato wasn’t invited to the Prime 2 party. Maybe to keep costs down, a significantly different sound card was used from the Prime 4. It has quite a price difference after all.
I know the Prime Go has limitations on routing and it isn’t just because it has less channels. The way the audio travels within its sound card makes some things not possible. Could this limitation also extend to Prime 2? Even Engine OS has limits to what it can add to the Prime Go due to the sound card used.
The Prime 4 doesn’t have a Serato logo on the faceplate and is one of the only Serato compatible controllers that I’ve seen on the market NOT have it. My take on that is that back in 2019 when Engine OS wasn’t quite mature as a stand-alone controller software a Serato DJ licence was paid for so users still had a professional option while Engine OS Is maturing. An insurance policy if you will. I feel Engine OS is now close enough to stand up on its own and can be used without a licence to Serato paid as a ‘crutch’ to help early adopters. The Prime 2 came at a time when most people didn’t need this extra licence fee paid on it and for those that did (Video DJs) at least had an option with Virtual DJ.
A lot of the above is only opinion but valid reasons why you may never see SDJ on certain Denon DJ products after the Prime 4. Pioneer DJ seem to hold back SDJ support on all of their new all-in-one controllers, I don’t believe that it’s Serato not being ready as their logo is on the faceplate. I think Pioneer DJ have engineered a “timed exclusivity” with their own Rekordbox where they are the sole software option for a few months to get people hooked for a few months. It’s long enough for people to decide whether or not they can live without Serato DJ, keeping them in the Rekordbox bubble.
That is because that controller was built WITH Serato as a collaborative effort. It was launched as a Serato controller together and the first to have screens inside it. They had to work together as the screens needed the data from Serato. There was big promotion on both sides of the production.
The Prime 2 was not. Serato had nothing to do with it.
Well said.
A lot of folks don’t seem to acknowledge the business end of things.
Or they just let their loyalty get in the way of common sense
Well that reminds me of this…
Plus Atomix/Virtual DJ have invested at least some time, if not some pennies in giving VDJ an extended lease of life by giving it a non-midi intergration on Primes. I would imagine that they easily might have stipulated that they wanted Denon to ease off of inviting other DJ software houses to co-brand with, for a while.