Olympus abdicating entry level ILS market?

sderdiarian wrote:

Then checking Amazon I found that for under $500 you can purchase:

It was already reported couple of times that the reason for that is largely over-production and (on several occasions) repurposing of remaining stock of outdated parts.

Nobody really can't compete with such price dumping.

N.B. "Under $500" is a poor example. If you look hard enough, you can easily find deals even below $400.

Funny thing is, one of the key advantages touted for mirrorless at its advent was lower manufacturing costs. Interesting how this has yet to translate into the marketplace.

They are cheaper. The problem is that death of P&S and advent of smartphones put enormous pressure on manufacturers to find new (higher) price brackets to survive.

That's why new top level FF cameras start well above the $3000 mark. Market is shrinking - less units are sold - development costs has to be amortized with higher margins.

The mirrorless was caught in the middle. No manufacturer(*) risks to set prices too low, because that might establish "price expectation" and consumers simply would not buy more expensive gear.

(*) With exception of Sony. They priced A6000 and A5100 well below the rest of the market. But they (and the rest) might suffer the consequences of such price policies in mid-/long-term.

That's also why USA has often times such poor availability of new gear. The market in USA is structured differently, price expectations are very low, making it unattractive market for manufacturers. They might sell more units there, but margins are lower compared to, for example, Europe.

Otherwise, honestly, mirrorless delivers everything I expected from it. Even basic EVF of modern mirrorless trumps easily the halfbaked OVF of the entry-/mid-level DSLRs. Hard, literally impossible, to go back. And in case of m43 specifically, no DSRL system can beat the handy collection of small lenses.