Originally posted by Clavius Why is it so important to be the first?
It is important to be first, or at least early enough, because you otherwise lose sales to other companies. This has been happening for Pentax for a while now and the recent D800, 5D3 introductions will most likely increase the rate at which Pentaxians defect to Canikon.
Furthermore, of course Pentax can still introduce an FF camera in four years time and they will sell copies, no doubt. But it won't be the head turner it would have been a year ago.
To clarify: I obviously wasn't talking about a first FF camera. I was talking about the first attractively priced (I referred to it as "affordable") FF camera with a convincing feature set.
Hitherto Canikon FF cameras have always been pretty huge things with a hefty - enormous price tag. Canikon sold these at high margins and often artificially crippled lower models in order to protect the "non plus ultra" status of their flagships.
Pentax could have entered the FF market with a very capable but not outrageously priced camera. It would have looked very well against the largish and very expensive Canikon offerings. Now that the D800 is out, this coup has become a lot harder. It is an awful lot of camera for the money and even if Pentax can produce something that will be competitive in terms of value for money, it won't be the head turner -- in the sense that even shooters from other brands would be tempted to buy an FF Pentax -- it would have been a year ago.
P.S.: Sony's A850 was the camera I'm talking about for Pentax. It wasn't a huge success but the reasons for this are manifold. I believe that a Pentax version of an A850 with a great sensor introduced last year would have been great publicity for Pentax and would have sold well.