X-Pro3 Prices following the X100V...

Foskito wrote:

All you guys claiming my theory is a "crazy conspiracy theory" probably are not familiar with working in branding of luxury brands (as I do) and do not know how those brands create hype and built reputation.

So I am going to have to explain AGAIN so maybe you can GET it this time...

To be fair, the effects of supply outstripping inflation are well documented in basic economics books, and the branding and marketing ploys that exploit irrational consumer behaviour are well documented and illustrated in modern economics books by Dan Ariely and others. It’s not all that hard to grasp.

But the Swatch example is different to Fujifilm cameras.

The Omega x Swatch watch is a collaboration. Both brands trade on branding (because all most of their products do is tell the time) but one is a very high-value, high-class brand and the other a much lower-end, high-street cool one. An analogous camera would be not so much a Fujifilm as a “Leica x Lomo”.

The watch also has several special editions. It’s being milked. One edition is sold and the next springs up, taking advantage of demand while still ensuring exclusivity. Where are the special edition X100Vs?

Watches have virtually no functional differentiation, and almost all premium watches are priced purely in desirability—whether that’s simple brand affinity, restricted supply or manufacturing novelties such as being manufactured during a full moon or having parts cut from the fuselage of a wrecked Spitfire—or some combination thereof. Cameras compete heavily on functionality and niches in terms of usability—not uniquely so, but heavily. There is no camera like the X100V (fixed wide angle lens, traditional controls, viewfinder, etc) other than the Leica Q, and it makes no economic or banding sense for the lower-priced product to try to raise its price towards the higher-quality product on branding alone.

Some of us at least do understand the point you’re trying to make, and how exclusivity works in terms of economics. But that doesn’t mean that we believe that Fuji are contriving this whole situation, or that a specific watch collaboration is accurately analogous.

Anyroad… I think we will have to agree to disagree. Our opinions will change nothing, in any case.