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RSHPhotography wrote:
The thing is Nikon and Canon's marketing are really stupid. I'm in Marketing from a Finance point of view.
The biggest gain these guys need is Injection of new customers into a lineup. they need to get through their thick skulls that VERY FEW PEOPLE WILL BUY A Dx compared to the Dxx line. There's too big of a price gap for people to make that jump. Pros will. But Pros are not the problem. Consumers not getting pro level equipment IS the problem. The reason the D700 worked is because it was a no-nonsense camera that had little compromises.
It's the same reason why the D500 is popular. Putting crappy AF (more Canon than Nikon) and removing options is not the way to go. How much is a round eyepiece or a dedicated AF on button, etc...or 1/8000 shooting at 7-8 fps? It's peanuts in terms of development because the tech already exists. But it can result in someone waiting or switching to another brand.
Let me ask you guys this, had the D750 come out in a D800 style body, with 1/8000, would there be holdouts for the D760? Maybe, but not as many.
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I think what you're missing is the delicate marketing game Nikon has to play with model separation and diversification - especially when you sometimes have several bodies only hundreds apart. At the end of the day, there *has* to be things that justify the different price points in the lineup. If you just give every pro feature to the bottom-end bodies because it doesn't cost much to add, what would be the point of the rest of the lineup? Or if there were only 1 or 2 tiny features separating $2000 and $6000 bodies, who would buy the $6000 one or even the $3000 one?
Everyone wants a D8XX sized D5 for $1000 with their choice of MP. Who wouldn't. But Nikon needs to make more than one camera. They *have* to omit things from lower-end bodies in order to justify the higher priced ones, or they might as well just make 1 or 2 cameras and call it a day. The big things that everyone looks at like sensor, FPS, AF, buffer, build/layout, etc. have to be some of those differences otherwise there's no way you can justify some of the price gaps. Leaving out *just* enough to make people yearn for the next model up is a big part of a successful model lineup. Just look at cars - want the base model but with lane assist, radar cruse control, and blindspot monitoring? Too bad, have to buy the full load to get those small features or an expensive package bundled with 90% of things you don't want to pay for. Another example is why Cable TV companies keep the most popular channels spread out across separate packages.
Of course they could start adding CAM20K AF modules, round eyepieces, AF-ON buttons, 10 FPS, 1/8000 shutters, pro layouts, 200 frame buffers, etc. to all their bodies at all price points but that would be outrageous. No company would do that, and their competition isn't doing that (Nikon actually gives non-flagship bodies way more than Canon does).
Nikon is well aware of Dx body sales numbers and expectations - I don't think there's anything they need to get through their heads about that. It's not like there is a huge surplus of Dx bodies left over every year because they thought their $6.5K bodies would sell like hotcakes to soccer moms and the rest of the general public. They are very low volume, high margin (around $3K per body by some estimations) products and nobody thinks otherwise. I imagine many of them go straight to news agencies and similar organizations through various contracts as well.
Nikon continues to make approximately 85% of it's revenue from low-end DX kits. Surely that is their focus, and it's also why you see much more frequent refreshes on DX bodies and 18-XXX lenses.
I don't think there's a lot of new FX customers being added every year. I suspect the majority of their FX business is from body/lens refreshes and the subsequent upgrades existing professionals and enthusiasts make. I believe that is one big reason why it's so much smaller than their DX business, along with obviously the higher cost of entry. I don't imagine there are many D3XXX orD5XXX owners buying the new D5XXX or D3XXX every year, but lots of people still get their first DSLR for Christmas.
The chances that anyone here knows more about camera marketing than Nikon's own marketing team is pretty much zero, but many are quick to point out Nikon's 'problems' that would so easily be solved by doing 'this' or 'that'. There are also a lot of other markets to consider - for example the Nikon 1 series gets shit on here all the time but in Asia it is quite successful for them.
If you look at their current lineup, it's pretty much perfectly spaced out with very reasonable feature differences separating the price categories. Looking at the competition, it's even more reasonable. (rough prices):
D3400 kit $500 (Volume DX)
D5600 kit $800 (Volume DX)
D7200 $1000 (Enthusiast/Volume DX)
D500 $2000 (Pro DX)
D610 $1500 (Entry FX)
D750 $2000 (Enthusiast-FX, all round feature set)
D810 $3000 (Pro FX, landscape/studio/all round feature set)
D5 $6500 (Pro FX, sports/action/low light)
Now imagine if the entire FX lineup had the same build and general feature set with only tiny inconsequential differences between them - it would be *awesome* for consumers but a disaster for Nikon as a company whose #1 goal is to make money. Consumers getting all out pro-level equipment for non-pro prices would not be a sustainable business model for Nikon. Nikon can make the D500 so close to the D5 spec because the sensor size remains an enormous difference for many consumers. If there was a FX camera that was a D5 except for physical size and half the price, that would probably be too close for Nikon's comfort but I would love it if they made one. I do think Nikon is going to split the D8XX lineup this year which will likely be a very popular decision, but I won't be surprised if they cap the speedier D8XX at 7 or 8 FPS tops and lower the buffer compared to a D5 or use different card media.
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