In case you haven't figured it out yet, a close look at this week's promotions tells you everything you need to know: Nikon relies on price as their primary selling point. Every Nikon camera other than the D800 and D4 are now on discount, including the most recent cameras introduced here in the US (e.g., the D600).
So what dots should we connect? Well, how about the poor customer support at NikonUSA? Or apparent lapses in quality control?
The D600 is the most interesting of the bunch in thinking about this. If you shop around in the US, you can find it for an effective price of around US$1860. In other words, here we are less than two months after first shipment and we're seeing mid-life pricing. Nikon themselves have thrown in a 5% discount (US$100 instant savings), but their strong push of inventory to dealers is further weakening the effective price.
Add to this a lingering inventory problem: here in the US there are still D3000's on shelves, and certainly plentiful supply of D3100 and D5100 models. With the low-end models cycling on twelve to eighteen month intervals, any buildup forces margins down.
The bottom line is that Nikon is more interested in making additional sales at the moment than they are in fully preserving margin. In the overall declining camera market, that smacks of the old "buy market share" tactic, and apparently Nikon is willing to compromise margins to do that.
I suspect that at the core is the age old Nikon problem: Canon envy. Nikon desperately wants to say they are the leading camera company. Not just in overall sales (I believe they might be at #2 by the end of this year across all cameras), but in every individual market that's tracked, as well. Leader in Japan. Leader in the US. Leader in compacts. Leader in mirrorless. Leader in DSLRs. Leader in lens sales.
But leader in this context simply means "sold the most units." By squeezing prices hard, and thus also squeezing resources in the subsidiaries and likely even in manufacturing, Nikon is potentially messing with their brand reputation. I'm not sure I'd trade "best camera" for "most cameras" in terms of reputation, but that appears to be a compromise Nikon is headed for.
Pricing wars always end up with a race to the bottom, and then, once at bottom, the remaining entities all struggle for air. It's one way that the traditional leaders defend what they perceive to be their turf, too. Given the fact that few of the Japanese camera concerns actually show profits at the moment, Nikon's still profitable group reducing margins to make more sales is a big warning to everyone else. But it's coming at a customer cost, I think. That's how I connect the dots, at least.