Originally posted by Dartmoor Dave
Pentax could be an APS-C and medium format manufacturer, or it could be an APS-C and full frame manufacturer. But it hasn't got the resources to do both medium format and full frame alongside APS-C.
I'm not sure how you have determined this. They've been all 3 since 2016---but actually, before that since the planning for the K1 preceded its release but some time, and the Z was released in 2014, and there were already apsc cameras in the lineup.
So, I'll jump in with my thoughts about this "announcement"/ development. It's now 2023, and the Z is still a very capable camera, but is there any other digital camera that's had this long a run, 8 years? Undoubtedly they've reached the end of the supply chain (or hod done a while back) on parts---obviously the sensor, but probably other electronics as well that maybe can't just be re-manufactured. So this was all quite inevitable, just as it was for the K-70. The answer to that problem was the KF.
Will there be an answer in the medium format line? We don't know until Pentax tells us definitively. What they could do is also entirely dependent on what sensor(s) are available. But a new crop frame Z could be fine if it added IBIS, pixel shift, composition shift, plus several other upgrades, like 4k video---cropped down to FF.
So while this news is a bit deflating for me personally, as a Z enthusiast and owner of one plus 14 lenses, it's not like it's unexpected. I still have hope---all the mirrorless comments fail to consider that Pentax committed itself to OVF's for the whole line, and it's not like there's not a lot of mirrorless out there in apsc and FF. So the medium format mirrorless comparison seems odd.