BREAKING: Nikon Acquires Red!

America has special laws that favours their own companies. Now that RED is foreign owned I doubt Nikon has the legal strength to protect RED intellectual property rights unlike before when it was American owned.

Who is left to challenge it?

Sony signed a settlement.

Apple got beaten. Not sure they'll want to reopen it.

Canon got access via the RF mount exchange. At least that's what people think.

Panasonic?

America has special laws that favours their own companies. Now that RED is foreign owned I doubt Nikon has the legal strength to protect RED intellectual property rights unlike before when it was American owned.

Who is left to challenge it?

Sony signed a settlement.

Apple got beaten. Not sure they'll want to reopen it.

Canon got access via the RF mount exchange. At least that's what people think.

Panasonic?

They can all try again.
There is a good chance they could win.

Depends on what terms they settled on. You can't just try until you get the result you want.

Now its sold to a new foreign owner the IP has become internationalised therefore the status quo has changed.

I expect they will release a high end hybrid within the next couple of years that will be best in class or thereabouts.

You mean higher than the Z9? We can all find faults with anything but it's hard to find something overall better than either the Z8 or Z9.

i'm more than happy right now with what I've got but evolution never stands still. Nikon produced the best DSLRs ever made for stills but look where that got them in terms of market share as everything turned towards mirrorless hybrid. I'm not one for speculating but whatever they release will will need to be something to turn videographers' heads. Global shutter to surpass what Sony is doing comes to mind. Nikon will need to add features that are standard on video cameras: more scopes, false color etc.

Whatever they release next at the high end of the hybrid range will need to make big waves in the world of video and the association with Red will give them a lot more credibility in this world (tech aside). I doubt they have made the acquisition for the raw patents. This might be a short terms side effect until the patents run out but it might give them a head start.

I expect Red to work with Nikon on colour science even before new hardware ships. A firmware update for the Z9/Z8 might provide R3D . At the same time I bet Nikon will be working with Red on autofocus . The Red cameras could get a firmware update with Nikon help.

New cameras could be two+ years out . Unless this all started out with Nikon and Red working together on something .

America has special laws that favours their own companies. Now that RED is foreign owned I doubt Nikon has the legal strength to protect RED intellectual property rights unlike before when it was American owned.

Nikon has 14 divisions in the U.S. -- these are American corporations -- handling different aspects of their business in this region. Nikon revenue was close to $5 billion in 2023. Red's annual revenue was about $143 million.

Nikon can probably afford Red's law firm, if it wants to pursue the same path as Red.

Nikon may add tweaks to the Z8/Z9 adding capabilities developed by Red. But the big news will be their entry into the cinema camera field and how they price it and support it to gain a serious foothold in the cinema camera market. They may well follow the same model that they use for their hybrid cameras meaning a more entry-level version Nikon Cinema and a high end level. ZCR badge. Too bad NCR has already been used by National Cash Register, not that they couldn’t use that because cameras would be a different product category than business machines, but the subliminal reference to ‘cash’ is the opposite direction their cinema line will follow; they’ll want to disrupt the pricing model and sell feature-rich cameras to cinematographers and studios rather than rely on a worldwide rental business model that drives ARRI. Nothing wrong with ARRI’s business model but Nikon wants to be a leader in a new line of business, not a follower.

And they’ll develop true cinema prime and zoom lenses that are differentiated from the Nikkor lenses to pair with their cameras which could lead to all sorts of magical results when both products are mated. With disruptive features. Of course the lenses will have manual overrides where that’s important. Imagine a lens or camera with LIDAR integrated and new conceptualized controls to rival the functionality of the Preston Ranger without stepping on existing patents.