Today Sony officially announced that it will withdraw from the camera business. Sony's CEO was quoted saying that his company can no longer compete with Nikon and Canon:
In a shocking interview with Nikkei, Sony's CEO announced that his company is pulling out of the camera business. The main reason for the move has been the latest announcements of advanced mirrorless cameras by Nikon and Canon. The CEO said, “it was easy to sell mirrorless cameras when there was no competition, now the business environment changed and we at Sony feel that we can no longer make the profit we used to".
Sony fans around the world are in disbelief, but as a reader mentioned in an email to me: “how can people be surprised, don't they remember Betamax, DuoStick, A-mount..."
Olympus showed interest in buying Sony’s camera division. The company’s CEO said “We ran out of options to promote our products and we cannot create a bigger MFT sensor. We have to go full frame and we are too late to join the L-mount.”
Executives from Nikon and Canon were spotted celebrating in a Tokyo bar late last night.
Even AIBO switched from Sony to Nikon: