I'm not surprise. Nikon Z system so late entering the blood bath war (FF Mirrorless)and the other main flaw is their S lenses's price compare to the competitors. But after Nikon who's next? i thinks Panasonic suffer huge lost too in that market. I don't see the effectiveness of the alliance between Pana, Leica and Sigma.
In the article they even named the real culprit of this story.
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Toyo Keizai says that Nikon’s fear of conflicting with its DSLR camera sales made the company reluctant to produce a mirrorless camera. By the time it entered the market, Sony had long since entrenched itself. In 2019, Sony produced 1.65 million units, while Nikon had only produced 280,000. "
Case Nikon will be taught in business scools for years to come because this is the classical case of trying to milk your cash cow (DSLR ecosystem) for way too long. If you are afraid or unwilling to cannibalize your own product lines, someone else will come and do it for you. In this case, everyone else because Nikon was the last to jump into mirrorless bandwagon.
And here comes another interesting discovery because it explains why on earth did photoghraphers switch from DSLR to mirrorless despite both systems producing same IQ and even weight/size savings are questionable because the bulk will come from lenses which are FF size anyway.
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Canon similarly waited to enter the market but has fared much better with strong sales of the EOS R5 capping a couple of years of what is proving to be a better mirrorless strategy."
So why is R5 a success story even when native lenses are almost as few and far between as for Z-mount? Well, just have a look at marketing material. Canon makes a song and dance about new features in this order:
1) 8k Video! Yes Uncropped 8k Video!!!! Did I already say 8k? I did? Well, let's say it again: 8k Video!!!
2) 4k Video and 120fps slo mo!! Unbelievable
3) Excellent continous autofocus for video shooting
4) Great handheld video thanks to new IBIS!!
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N+1) Still images? ...well, I suppose you can take those too (Watanabe-san, is there a still image option in this body? There is? Good!)
Panasonic on the other hand has gone all in to professional video in both MFT and FF worlds. Up to the point where they throw everything and the kitchen sink at even three year old models via continuous FW updates - for Free. In MFT this has already proven to be the right move compared to Olympus who tried to create the best still image cameras without making any compromizes towards video features. Panasonic has cornered a very solid niche in videocentric market but whether that is large enough is to be seen. Sony is the 500 pound gorilla thanks to their near 100% control for the camera sensor market.