After all, in view of the rather poor sales of cameras in this year, would it be really wise (or unwise) for Pentax (Ricoh) to launch their new flagship in September as rumoured? :-(
Friday, July 03, 2020
CIPA Reveals that Total Shipments of DCs and ILCs are Only 27.4% of Those in 2019
CIPA has published figures about the digital camera shipments, which are both only 27.4% of the quantities in 2019, as in May 2020, for both Interchangeable Lens Cameras (ILCs) and Digital Still Cameras (DSCs).
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Comments by IntenseDebate
Gert Jan · 246 weeks ago
Peter · 245 weeks ago
What should they wait for? Until they drift off into the land of "NeverHeardOf"??
I think its very very important for PENTAX and RICOH-Imaging to stay present on the market and more so:
In the minds of their users!
If they say lets stop the show until everything is fine again... It would finally kill the PENTAX brand.
I mean not really because one has got to know, that most likely it wont kill PENTAX completely since ANYWAY ... PENTAX is somewhat of a
prestige Project for RICOH Japan to keep the brand that produced the first japanese SLR alive ..
I mean its 100% japanese "cultural heritage" ... so i dont believe those gloom and doom scenarios.
But !! -> Loosing customers would hurt the system.
And would lead to way longer product development cycles and a lot less diversity of products than already.
And the reason i think it would hurt them badly is because people already where nagging perpetually,
since the KP really was some kind of a bad joke for many.
(tech-wise there may be some truth to that)...
Anyway.., it was a camera for naive enthusiasts and hardcore fans to fill the gap and satisfy their GBA.
Nonetheless... many PENTAXIANs saw it as an insult on their mental constitution, looking at the price for a camera half as capable as the K-3, made many people think : "ju5t fu44 011!"
Whilst others just saw it as an interesting design experiment, like the K-01...
Nonetheless the K-3 and K-3II ran out of stock pretty soon, so they had to feed the market with a StopGap.
But desireable design-object or not... it doesnt matter:
It was no APS-C flagship replacement. PERIOD. let alone only one sd-slot and still not UHS-II...
(Not to speak of XQD or CFExpress, which would have been perfectly fine looking at the KP introduction price)
If they now pussyfoot around because of a situation that wont go away in the foreseeable future... They will loose most of the customers which would normally stay loyal.
Especially since Northrup permanently tries to blackmail RICOH and spreads rumours that PENTAX will cease to exist beyond 2020...
(and also sony fanboys sneak into EVERY PENTAX-related platform and subliminally try to convince PENTAX users to finally jump ship )
All in all, putting the K-new "on hold"
phew... that could severely hurt the brand... which is good for nothing. NOTHING.
I really hope for them they dont do that.
I feel its a very PENTAX/RICOH-specific tactic to wait, and keep the fans waiting.
That would be the same failure than waiting for 2016 to release the K-1 ... while it actually was prototyped and waiting to be produced in 2012-13 i guess ... **
No matter what some wannabe-marketing-genius at RICOH may think, this pussyfooting around actually doesnt heat up the fans ... it only pushed a lot of people away from pentax.
(**AFAIR there where some shots of something that looked very much like the present K-1 around on the net, long before the K-1 mock-up was shown to the public. And if I have to throw in my 2 cents, I would say this was one of the first things, RICOH initiated when they took over PENTAX from HOYA... developing a full-frame)
John Cross · 244 weeks ago