[thibs]

I am just saying that IF you want to go down this road, you have to do it full throttle ESPECIALLY against goPro who actually invented this field!!

When goPro is rated about 8Billion $ then this tiny slice of market cannot be THAT tiny!

But how i going to buy that thing.

If you have this one and the goPro in your hands and you dont know. The salesperson will just say

1. lighter
2. more watertight(with housing)
3.FAR better video
4.more additional equiptment

I think they should have dont more when it came to video. Sorry just my opinion.

Or you test waters first 'cos if you don't and went big time you lose money big time.

[Mehlsack]

Well i rented a GoPro Hero3 and could use it without proplems even without any manual whatsoever. I used it for snorkling and a little bit of free diving. Worked great.

I really like the WG-M1design and would prefer that ANYTIME over the weird goPro design, but for me what matters most is the performace like high framerates for action etc. so i cant see a very positive think about the WG-M1 now....

[Tesla]

I haven't seen this posted yet.. black version..

[D1N0]

It's the best looking action camera so far.

[Quicksand]

It looks like a giant G-Shock watch.

[Tesla]

It looks like a giant G-Shock watch.

It does! But very cool.. now they need to make some higher spec versions to compete with GoPro.

[RonHendriks1966]

Looks great in black too.

[Uluru]

It does! But very cool.. now they need to make some higher spec versions to compete with GoPro.

They don't want to compete in this specific market. This rebadging of the JK product exercise clearly says it so. If they wanted to compete, they would bet on it with their own brain trust and investment.

This is not a new product strategy, because there is no new product here. This is confectionery and coffee shop business; very few coffee shops bake their own cakes and serve their own coffee. All is supplied by third party supplier and you pay for the table, smile, and for the frothing on top.

[H. Sapiens]

I have to agree with Uluru that it is a half hearted attempt - the equivalent of the numberless compacts they flooded the market with. Nice design wrapped around last years' technology. It is a shame. I have just been touring Morocco and I have in 3 months seen one Pentax apart from mine but hundreds of GoPros (or similar). And I am not lying about the numbers: pretty much all motorcyclists touring the country have one on the helmet.

My brother have a GoPro and I just can't take it serious. I need something that combines the ruggedness with decent photo quality. Pentax could be the brand, but they sit firmly on the hands.

[Uluru]

But to their credit, I must say that we have seen some original designs in the last 3 years. They were scarce, but well worth mentioning.
Those are:

— DA 20-40 lens design
— TC 1.4 lens design
— K-S1 camera design

I am not counting anything else in this, because K-3 or 645Z, for example, is the K-5 / 645D derivative and is based on years of exploitation of the same design. Theta is rather a toy that looks like an Apple remote; one needs no PhD in industrial design to figure that out. Etc. However these three products above: TC shows some brilliant independence in thinking when it comes to optics design; the DA20-40 is rather unique in the whole market; K-S1 shows thinking outside the box. Now that is something I will always applaud to, and bow down to — that is the Pentax I believe in, and that is the product I am willing to support wholeheartedly. It is pity we see very little of original commitment.

[Kunzite]

I have a feeling that if they were seriously competing heads-on with GoPro, people would blame them for diverting resources from the overly precious FF. It doesn't matter what they're doing, as long as we can find a reason to complain (I guess I'm complaining about complaining...).
Fighting a well established brand when you don't have much brand recognition is not an easy task. Even GoPro is losing money (despite sales increasing)... is it worth it for Ricoh to pursue? Or perhaps what needs to be done is to have a product, the mandatory accessories and try to build brand recognition on this market?

[Uluru]

... Fighting a well established brand when you don't have much brand recognition is not an easy task. Even GoPro is losing money (despite sales increasing)... is it worth it for Ricoh to pursue? Or perhaps what needs to be done is to have a product, the mandatory accessories and try to build brand recognition on this market?

That is the situation with a market leader; they lead in commitment, marketing, and development of future for their products. Plus they don't have decades of investment behind them.
One reason Ricoh Imaging is making profit is because they don't spend on marketing like other companies do. Nor they waste time in development like GoPro. They only invest a bare minimum to advance their decades of old investment just a bit further — not much, just a bit. And then they try to make it all look splashy, so they add colours.
I mean, it is smart and fun for them. But let us not expect anything new, groundbreaking and serious from them either.

[Jean Poitiers]

That is the situation with a market leader; they lead in commitment, marketing, and development of future for their products. Plus they don't have decades of investment behind them.
One reason Ricoh Imaging is making profit is because they don't spend on marketing like other companies do. Nor they waste time in development like GoPro. They only invest a bare minimum to advance their decades of old investment just a bit further — not much, just a bit. And then they try to make it all look splashy, so they add colours.
I mean, it is smart and fun for them. But let us not expect anything new, groundbreaking and serious from them either.

I would tend to agree. Milk that cash cow product(s) to the last drop ...

[H. Sapiens]

APS C will not take them anywhere and definitely not with the commitment we have seen the past years. I am sorry, I don't see how Pentax can grow much there - maybe relatively because other brands will leave (and I don't even see that happening) but not in sold units. I am not shouting "doom and gloom" because what Pentax have now is likely enough to keep the numbers in black. Sony will give them a new sensor once a year and they can make a lens or two. Business as usual. New markets will arrive (India?) and people still buy DSLR's.

There will be new market segments opening up but It is no coincidence that GoPro was not invented by one of the traditional Japanese companies. Try to have a look at their managements - it is 60-somethings in identical suits and wearing identical glasses. GoPro was founded by a surfer. If think, if Ricoh is to find the golden pot it will be by integrating Pentax technology and know how with office equipment. Theta was not made for our sake.

---------- Post added 09-13-14 at 11:34 AM ----------

In some ways we was maybe fortunate that HOYA bought Pentax. I mean, they shut down factories and fired half of R&D and raised prices on lenses while the net was glowing with reports on poor QC. But it means that today Pentax don't have a lot of fluff or make more cameras than they can sell. Limiteds are super simple designs with a minimum of glass that certainly must make a very decent profit. For us it might be discouraging because honestly I don't see long lenses, fast lenses or FF coming but Ricoh is managing a sound business. A sucessor to K3 will come in 1-2 years and we will see a couple of general use zooms. Hopefully SDM will be preplaced with a faster and more stable alternative. That's the kind of things I am expecting.

[Aristophanes]

APS C will not take them anywhere and definitely not with the commitment we have seen the past years. I am sorry, I don't see how Pentax can grow much there - maybe relatively because other brands will leave (and I don't even see that happening) but not in sold units. I am not shouting "doom and gloom" because what Pentax have now is likely enough to keep the numbers in black. Sony will give them a new sensor once a year and they can make a lens or two. Business as usual. New markets will arrive (India?) and people still buy DSLR's.

There will be new market segments opening up but It is no coincidence that GoPro was not invented by one of the traditional Japanese companies. Try to have a look at their managements - it is 60-somethings in identical suits and wearing identical glasses. GoPro was founded by a surfer. If think, if Ricoh is to find the golden pot it will be by integrating Pentax technology and know how with office equipment. Theta was not made for our sake.

Actually, Sony and I think Casio had action mini-cams before GoPro. They had the vision internally, but were afraid to push or price them right for fear of cannibalization. I guess they never got the memo from Steve Jobs.

Keep in mind the Japanese business model is one of slow, steady evolution. GoPro IMO is going to stumble. It is over-priced and finicky with add-ons. The bulk of the market is going to be determined on price at the till, not the IPO price. These will be a niche accompanying smartphones, and their market is even more limited.

The Ricoh version really only needs some better codec specs and GPS. Do that and knock $90 off the price in 12 months and these things will be all over the place. The super-rugged devices mature quickly meaning they are not going to be a high turnover item.