>>3897792>Will they regret this decision?I don't think so. There's always going to be a market for SLRs, even if it does shrink dramatically. Just look at Leica--it's moderately ridiculous to buy a rangefinder in 2021, but Leica still sells 'em. Buying an SLR is a lot less ridiculous, and has some more obvious, easy-to-explain advantages (or at least things that people prefer even if they're not *objectively* advantages per se, like the optical viewfinder).
So since every other company has either already abandoned their SLR systems (Olympus, Panasonic, Sony) or seems poised to do so (Canon, Nikon), that'll leave Pentax as the last man standing on SLRs. They've gone from being the #4 manufacturer of SLRs after Nikon, Pentax, and Sony to being #3 already, so a few more years will likely put them at #1 by default.
It's not going to be a *huge* market, but it should stay a profitable niche, especially for a company like Ricoh who make most of their money on copiers and medical imaging and whatnot and don't need hugely profitable camera sales to keep them from going under.
Now, compare if Pentax had decided to go all-in on mirrorless. Sony has nearly a decade head start. Fuji, even without full frame, has a few years and a fiercely loyal fanbase that would generally be Pentax's demographic. Canon and Nikon finally joined in and have caught up quickly. Plus, m4/3 is still kicking and has been in mirrorless longer than anyone. So they'd see themselves going from the #3 DSLR manufacturer to something like #7 in mirrorless, plus all of their DSLR customers who might have happily bought another DSLR to continue using their lens collection might go "Well, if I have to buy all new lenses regardless, might as well see what everyone else is doing..."
So basically, I see Pentax becoming the Leica of SLRs in the future.
