Originally posted by monochrome You still don't understand 'compete'.
High capital investment, high marketing expense high volume, low profit margin, BigBox distribution is required to compete with Nikon and Canon. Pentax simply cannot do that. They aren't big enough. They can't make enough product to do it. They don't want to make the kind of products the average camera buyer buys in large volume at large chain stores.
They cant to compete with Canon and Nikon.
Ricoh has to do something else. They have to make a product that a smaller number of people want to buy (so they can make a smaller number of them in their limited-volume facilities), that they don't need to advertise, and that those people are willing to search for (in the West) to get it.
So basically you say they should stop with that APS-C/FF nonsense (or at the very least not do a FF camera) and only make the 645Z and the Q from now on? They should stop making cameras for most people in this forum? I don't think that's what Ricoh had in mind, when they bought Pentax, though that is the direction they have steered Pentax into (or allowed Pentax to go in that direction).
DSLRs are well covered by Canikon, especially on the FF side, Canikon leaves some room for Pentax in the APS-C segment, but I don't think there is any in the FF segment. Full frame mirrorless is well covered by Sony, top of the line APS-C is well covered by Samsung. Olympus and Panasonic cover the smaller than APS-C but not too small market, and Panasonic, Sony and Samsung do video really well, while Olympus has better stabilization than Pentax. Rangefinders are well covered by Fuji and Leica, and traditionally not a strength of Pentax anyway. Is it the colorful camera market that Pentax should do?
Btw., Ricoh Pentax is larger than Nikon, IIRC, and brands like Sony, Olympus, Panasonic and Samsung have (or had) less marketshare than Pentax and could get into shops (unlike Pentax).