P.P.S. Thom's actual words: "I'm going to go a different direction: no D3x. Yes, a 24mp FX body, but it'll be the D900. This allows them to use the Sony sensor and bring it downscale to compete with the A900/5DII." Thom Hogan, speculating on Nikon's upcoming high MP offering.
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My take is as follows. Sony and Nikon are tag-teaming to bring Canon down. The first salvo (after the D3) was the D700 in a 5D/D300 sized body, with a reasonable 12MP FF (relatively low pixel density for a FF).
The next salvo will be Sony coming out with their A900, with the 24.6MP FF chip, in a "non-pro" body, sized similar to the D700. Due to its high pixel density, and the characteristics that come with it, this will not be a direct competitor to the D700. It will probably have an "APS-C crop mode", which essentially allows it to shoot at 10.7MP APS-C mode and at 25MP at full resolution.
The salvo after that, will be the Nikon D3X, with the same 24.6MP Sony FF chip, which, due to its higher price and body positioning, will not directly threaten the Sony A900 (thus allowing Sony to establish itself, while being able to provide an alternative to the 1DSIII, to Nikon). Sony at this stage in the game, is not interested in the 1DS market or even positioned to target such lofty levels.
Around a year (or at least 6 months later), Sony will come out with a lower MP FF (14MP Sony chip) which will compete with the D700 (and Canon 5DII), and around the same time, Nikon will put the D3X high pixel density Sony chip, in a "D900".
Please note that Sony, unlike a traditional camera-maker like Nikon (and to a lesser extent Canon), can introduce a "digital"-SLR, at much better pricing (or margins), since every single component in the D-SLR, are made by various divisions of Sony, including the image sensors, the LCDs, the batteries, the other electronic sensors, the firmware/software, the data pipeline, the processors etc and further downstream, Sony will leverage those price/cost advantages to target Nikon, after establishing themselves as a credible player, over the next couple of years. They will be introducing ultra-high-end lenses over the next couple of months, including Carl Zeiss Full-frame lenses, and also high-end flashes, thus truly positioning themselves as a 3rd alternative to the (current) major players.