Remember a few months back when the free copies of C4D CE were included with 3D World magazine....at the time it was said you could just upgrade it to CE+ (full version 6)for $99 US but no one thought it would be possible to get to version 8 directly from CE. Well now it's happened! As a consequence I just acquired the full upgrade at an even lower price than offered normally and was able because of this incredible deal to get the 8.5 Studio Bundle. If you have acquired the free CE version and haven't yet been contacted directly from Maxon I suggest you look into it if you are interested in an upgrade deal.
---Maya