Originally posted by luftfluss Nikon is in a bit of a tough spot. N, C, and S all put out fairly similarly-specced MILC cameras, but Sony and Canon are behemoths of the industry.
Nikon Z sales are likely also hurt by D500 and D850 owners not seeing anything worth upgrading to.
Pentax seems to have realized the only winning move (survival) is to not play.
A lot of the industry has gambled on full frame mirrorless to get them through the declining market as phones take over for all but a minority.
Once, this was just Leica and Sony. Now there's Canon, Zeiss, Nikon, Panasonic and Sigma.
Competition means discounting, which means the whole premise - increased profits - takes a hit as the seven companies are in a cagematch.
Why should Pentax join this lot until the blood, fur and feathers have stopped flying?
Their executives would be quite right in saying, 'Look at the spreadsheet modelling, let's wait until some players are on the verge of exiting the market.'
I'm sad that Nikon may well be one of them, it's a grand optics brand every bit as old as Pentax, but their financial results are diabolical. Like Olympus, it would be hard for a bank to loan them money to do anything in the future as long as they still sold cameras.
They have really shafted their DSLR owner base - the D500 may already be out of production, and none of the new lenses work on DSLRs. But so have Canon, they've sneakily discontinued 24 EF lenses, according to Petapixel.