Originally posted by Winder Shrinking market by number of units sold, not by revenue. If they do it right, it wont be "red ink". They will focus on the upper end of the market like Fuji and Sony. This is where the money has been the last few years. The shrinking has been happening at the bottom of the market.
---------- Post added 07-08-17 at 10:00 PM ----------
Nikon doesn't have a lot of choice. If they keep doing what they have been doing they will keep loosing market share. Sony has been gaining on them rather quickly. If they continue to do what they have been doing they will end up like Pentax.
There may be revenues in high-end mirrorless but are there profits? And if a 3rd company goes head-to-head with Sony & Fuji, then will there be sufficient profits to pay off all the R&D and capex costs of developing, launching, and marketing a new system? That's what I doubt. Sure, photographers would love the choice and price war of more competition in the high-end mirrorless market but that doesn't mean Nikon's shareholders will be happy.
And when I hear "playfulness" I think that Nikon is shooting for something very different than direct competition with the "serious" mirrorless cameras offered by Sony, Fuji, Olympus, etc. The smartphone generation does not want retro (e.g., Fuji) and they don't want complexity (e.g., Sony & most DSLRs) and they don't want bulk (e.g., most "serious" ILC mirrorless). What they want is all the convenience of a smartphone (drop-dead simple shooting, automatic post-processing & fun filters, and upload to cloud/social media) with better photographic quality (bigger sensor and higher-spec lens) all in a compact body. No one has cracked that market which seems potentially much more lucrative than making a me-too mirrorless ILC.