Quote: In my opinion its the other way around, pentax is gambling on not having ff and *IS* losing.
And you understand enough about the company to know this is true. You are aware of all their revenue streams etc. Every one of their more current ventures, be it the Q or the K-01 has been aimed at producing more value for money spent. An FF is probably the exact opposite of that. Big bucks to be spent for not much. The Q gives you DSLr functionality on a compact system, the K-01 gives you K-5 IQ at a much lower price. FF gives you a teeny tiny little bit more functionality at a much higher price, it's the opposite of more value for your money. It will cost more to develop an FF system than either a Q or K-01, and because of the higher starting price point it will have less chance of success... that's basic economics.
Usually you have to spend money to gamble. I'm not seeing how not spending money can be seen as a gamble, unless somehow making money on a full frame is guaranteed, which it's not, and losing money on a Q or K-01 is also a certainly. Neither of which are true. I'm with Pentax on this. Unless they can come up with a product that is truly unique... there is absolutely no point in taking on the giants. And that is out of Pentax's hands. If Sony or someone else can come up with a low cost full frame high quality sensor that would enable Pentax to come in at a price point say 1/2 to 2/3s of a Nikon or Canon system... and the Pentax guys can once again milk more out of that sensor than the other companies that will be buying it, then they have a shot. But it's not their turf. They have never had a DSLR FF camera, they are going to have to take market share from others who have no intention of giving it up, and nothing short of a great price point and aggressive product placement is going to do that. It is more likely to be money down the tube than money well spent, in my opinion.
Look at what percentage of Nikon or Canon business is FF.. they have about 40% market share each. Pentax might be as high as 5%. Apply the same numbers to Pentax and what is their possible market share of the total market for an FF camera? Maybe .1% of the total market using their existing customer base? Would 1 in 20 or even 1 in 100 Pentax customers be interested in an FF?
All I'm saying is, I don't see how this would be viable... enlighten me.
I'm just going with guesses here. Maybe Pentax has something up their sleeves. For all the FF lovers I hope so, but right now it's APS-c users and point and shoot users who are paying the piper. It's yet to be seen if there is a market for a Pentax FF. I think you guys are actually hoping Pentax will come up with an FF Pentax, paid for buy the rest of us Pentax users, maybe one basic model without a lot of bells and whistles, not competitive with what other companies offer, but something that would let us take good FF images at a much lower cost. The K1000 of FF if you will. The problem with that notion is the overbearing cost of FF sensors...