Meanwhile, some cameras either aren't in short supply, the brands don't have enough demand that the prices got affected by shorter supply, or the makers just decided that they wanted to try to buy market share. A lot of this action is happening in the mirrorless realm (m4/3, NEX, NX, etc.). Consider (all prices current B&H prices as I write this):
- Samsung NX100: US$549 with kit lens.
- Sony NEX-3: US$599 with kit lens.
- Panasonic GF-2: US$499 with kit lens.
- Olympus E-PL2: US$549 with kit lens.
Hmm. That looks interesting ;~). Basically you've got a few camera companies being highly competitive trying to grab a lion's share of this emerging compact system camera marketplace. Or maybe there's a different explanation:
- Nikon D3100: US$598 with kit lens.
- Canon Rebel T1i: US$599 with kit lens.
What the mirrorless group is discovering is that you can't sell a GF-2 type camera in the US in the quantities they sell in Japan without getting under the entry-level DSLR price, and even then it's a tough slog. Americans like viewfinders. They also like autofocus performance. The selling proposition of smaller/lighter doesn't win against viewfinder/fastfocus. Thus, the old US$999 price point Olympus tried with the E-P1 was doomed to fail here. And it's why Olympus has released the same basic camera four times, each time pulling cost out of producing it. I think they have a ways to go with the entry models. US$449 with a kit lens is about the point where it works against a US$599 DSLR in the US. Not so sure about other markets. Note that even in Japan where the mirrorless craze is the highest, the D3100 is in the top of the top 10 sellers of iinterchangeable lens cameras pretty consistently.
But consider this: the Olympus XZ-1 is US$499 and the E-PL2 is US$50 more. Pressure is getting exerted at both ends of the spectrum. You want to keep your most elaborate compact camera (XZ-1) up as high in price as possible, but you can't push your mirrorless (E-PL2) above the entry DSLR price point. That's a really tough place to put a product, because it's difficult to get your margin on the larger sensor model above that of your similar-priced compact model!
The Japanese are great at this game, though. They think nothing of putting out six models in very tight pricing increments. The problem for them is that there's great pressure on those price points to drop. I'm actually a bit amazed that the high end compact price has managed to be maintained at around the US$499 point for so long now. The market wants US$299. I'd be very interested in the elasticity of demand chart right now with all these models (compacts, mirrorless, DSLRs). I'm betting that all three are showing a strong push of volume leftwards (lower prices), but the Japanese are resisting it. Who's going to be the first to break out? My bet would Sony or Samsung, because of their vertical integration and distribution advantages.