Sorry for bringing the 'future of Pentax is mirrorless' speculation to yet another thread, but the latest interview with Ricoh made by PF seems to imply that they do not rule out the possibility of going mirrorless with their medium format (not to mention they said 'at this point no new 645 lenses are planned').
However, if Ricoh Imaging wants to introduce new medium format camera, there are lots of reasons why it's a good moment to go mirrorless with it. Besides the usual weight/size/evf etc. advantages that people elaborate in other threads, the important thing worth mentioning is the possibility to form a cooperation with another manufacturer of photo gear.
While SLRs are certainly nice and aren't going anywhere anytime soon, the mirrorless hype is real, and it has been already defined as the future of camera technology. Whether the hype deserves the merit, is another issue, but what's important is 'going mirrorless' is easily advertisable, compared to old SLR tech. Mirrorless MF is still a novelty, and this factor might be attractive when seeking an 'alliance' with another manufacturer.
Why such alliance is important? Because Ricoh Imaging is very small, and developing three ILC systems (APS-C, FF, and MF) simultanously at a reasonable rate is beyond their capacity.
Speaking about potential partners, Tamron and Tokina come to mind. Tamron has rather bad history with medium format (R.I.P. Bronica) but they have much bigger production capacity than Tokina.
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