Originally posted by uccemebug Not yet, anyway. Well said! 8^)
What I see among the photog's I speak to is an exhaustion with bulky/heavy and complex cameras.
Prove it. DSLR sales are still an increasing market in sales volumes, including m43, but DSLR's in aggregate have sold increasing #'s year YOY.
Anecdotally there is little evidence to back this up. My own local camera store disputes this. Everyone makes it sound like smaller always wins and even the historical record is against that. Olympus went all small in the 1970's did quite well, but never above #5. In fact, large-body Minolta became the star with the X700. There are boundaries for personal preferences, but as a general statement, your theory is simply not borne out by sales data. The "big" DSLR's have both gotten more compact, lighter, and have sold extremely well. The last 5 years have been a total Golden Age of the SLR despite this "size" impediment. It's a very large, competitive market and at no time has a single body size or type ever come to dominate. Ever. We'll probably see Fuji X100 knock-offs sub-$300 in 5 years sold to the same guy who owns a pellicle and an iPhone 8. The hope is Pentax can get some of those sales.
Quote: from juu, Which means that despite some here presenting it as a matter of utmost importance, Pentax may not necessarily view it that way and might view attracting new users to the brand as more important (hence doing a less-than-APSC sensored EVIL).
If Sony (Pentax's prime supplier for sensors) and Samsung have gone APS-C for mirrorless, and with Nikon and Canon also likely to go APS-C at some point for mirrorless, then Pentax will not offers its loyal, installed base a chance to jump to those brands. Pentax can get all it needs from APS-C without forcing brand loyalists into downgrading.
Keep the loyal Limited buyers or pay Olympus for its inferior sensor technology? Not a tough business decision at all.
P.S. I do not discard the notion that an EVIL small sensor system like Auto 110 is also a possibility for Pentax and/or Nikon. Neither compete well in the high-end compact market, nor superzooms, and an EVIL here may kill 2 birds with 1 stone, like Auto 100 tried to do. These could very well be the "pocket" 2nd system for many.