[MAJ] Prix : Canon augmente, Red diminue.

Coïncidence du calendrier ou stratégie obscure? Canon et RED ont tout deux choisis la date du 1° Novembre pour mettre à jour les prix de leur gamme de produits. Chose étonnante, alors que l’on pourrait s’attendre à ce que les deux constructeurs aillent dans le même sens, c’est tout l’opposé qui se produit. Canon pourtant leader sur le marché des HDSLR – et qui a su profiter de la vague du succès pour doper les ventes de ses camescopes EOS-C – annonce une hausse de ses prix conseillés allant pour les boîtiers d’une centaine de dollars à parfois 300. Bien entendu il s’agit d’une mise à jour des prix conseillés aux Etats-Unis, les revendeurs sont ainsi libres de s’adapter ou non, mais globalement cela devrait quand même se traduire par une légère hausse des prix pour le consommateur.

• Canon 5D Mark III (body only) price now: $3,194, new price: $3,499
• Canon 5D Mark III with 24-105mm f/4L IS kit price now: $3,949, new price: $4,299
• Canon EOS 5D Mark II (body only) price now: $2,099, new price $2,199
• Canon 5D Mark II with 24-105mm f/4L IS lens kit price now: $2,899, new price: $2,999
• Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS lens price now: $969, new price: $1,149
• Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II lens price now: $255, new price: $299.00

En revanche, Red a fait parvenir un communiqué indiquant sa volonté de baisser drastiquement le prix de ses caméras. Notamment sur l’EPIC. Stratégie intelligente quand on voit arriver sur le marché des caméras telles que les SONY F5 et F55 qui, sans égaler les qualités des RED peuvent leur faire grandement concurrence. Une manière pour RED de rester dans la course et de se replacer dans le coeur des cinéastes indépendants qui commençaient à faire grise mine face aux prix de la firme qui n’étaient plus si avantageux face à la déferlante des supports de captations qualitatif chez la concurrence.

Everything in the electronics world changes… usually for the better, cheaper and faster. EPIC just did.

We have learned how to make EPICs in quantity, lowered our assembly costs, found better suppliers and paid off our NRE.

That means we can continue to charge the same for an EPIC (and now make an obscene amount of profit) or lower the price.

Those of you that paid the initial price hopefully got your money’s worth. It was the best price we could offer at the time. You rented your cameras. You used them to generate income by shooting projects.

The industry struggles how to handle it when technology gets better for cheaper. We just tell the truth.

We are ready to lower prices on EPIC.

So if you bought an EPIC did you lose? Only if you did not put your EPIC to work. These are professional tools. They need to work. That is your responsibility.

Is your EPIC still relevant? Absolutely. Can it be upgraded to Dragon? Yes. Is it frustrating that you paid $X and it will soon be sold for some percentage less than X? Yes. But this is the nature of electronics. It has been. It is. And it always will be.

I paid over $2400 (in 1984 dollars) for an original 1984 Macintosh. That is over $4000 worth of today’s money. It had no hard drive. It was 128K of RAM. 3.5″ floppys. All I could do with a 1984 Macintosh was MacPaint and MacWrite.

Today… for $4000 you can buy an iMac with a ton of RAM and a bazillion times more in storage that is 10,000 times faster and more capable with a billion times more applications. If you thought the world was changing rapidly then… hold on to your hat. We now live in the world of exponential.

So. We could easily pretend and invent a new model to justify a lower price with higher performance. You are too smart for that. So are we. Instead… we will just lower the price of EPIC.

EPIC continues to be modular. Dragon will be an upgrade. Meizler is a module. All is good in the world if you accept the fact that everything gets better, cheaper, faster and for less money over time.

If you bought an EPIC in the past 30 days… we will offer a credit towards accessories. That amount will be posted along with the new EPIC pricing. Nov. 1st is when it happens.

Here is to transparency and honesty. Here is to the future. This is all an experiment. Let’s see how it goes…

Il est à noter que ces mises à jour des prix conseillés ne sont pas une nouveauté. Nikon avait déjà, en Septembre augmenté le tarif conseillé de ses boîtiers.

[MAJ] Les nouveaux prix de Red sont enfin connus!

As I said before, everything in the electronics world changes… usually for the better, cheaper and faster. EPIC and Scarlet just did. Right now.

We have built an incredibly efficient factory in Irvine, California and over time learned how to make EPICs in quantity, lowered our assembly costs, found better suppliers and fully paid off our NRE. When we assembled the 1st EPIC camera in Stage 6 at RED Studios Hollywood it took our team 12 hours. It took two more days to de-bug. Today we can assemble an EPIC in 13 minutes and 95+% need no re-work after diagnostics and testing. It is a testament to our manufacturing team and supply chain teams.

Since our costs are now significantly lower we are re-pricing our cameras as of now.

For those of you that purchased a new Scarlet ( not battle tested ) or EPIC brain on or after Oct. 1st 2012, the next time you order accessories from RED you will receive a discount to use towards that purchase. $1000 for Scarlet and $4000 for EPIC. Talk to your Bomb Squad representative when you are ready to use this discount.

Now… here is the new pricing:

5K EPIC-X Brain- $19,000

5K EPIC-X Monochrome Brain- $20,000

5K EPIC-M Brain- $24,000

5K/4K Scarlet Brain- $7,950

4.5K RED ONE M-X Battle Tested- $4000 (includes SSD recording module). The RED ONE is End of Life. Battle tested is all that will be available from here on out.

Due to high anticipated volumes, plan on extended response and processing times.

Dragon sensor upgrade is not included for any EPIC system purchased at the new pricing going forward. It will be a $6K upgrade.

Pricing is being updated on www.red.com as I post this.