I think that upgrade path policies between MFDB makers differ considerably (and this is important to mention). The main difference between P1 policies and the rest, is that P1 offers prices that are much greater to what one would get if selling the back as S/H and they do so for third party equipment too..., while the rest of the makers, offer less than the S/H price of equipment so that they can return it into the market with some profit... Exception to the above rule, is Sinar when they take back a multishot (only) back as a trade for an (again multishot) new one, where they offer a price reduction of the new near to 30% (compare that with the 70% that P1 sometimes offers...) for the new back as to keep their leadership on this particular segment of marketing... That said, the 30% isn't all financed from Sinar, as they reduce the dealer margin on these cases because they consider (correctly) that the owner would upgrade to a new Sinarback no matter who the dealer is...
I believe that P1's policy to offer an "upgrade path" that prices the S/H back well beyond the market value, proves that P1 overprices the new products deliberately... They could as well price the new backs lower and give a "reasonable" market price for the trade as the rest do... The difference for the customer, would still be the same.
Theodoros -
Other than your claim that Phase One prices their products "artificially high", I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but your arguments relative to other manufacturers pricing and policies is incorrect. There has been traditionally very little difference between Phase One and Hasselblad upgrade pricing policies. And Sinar only has a few digital back models, so they're a bit of an anomaly, but even so, an 86-H traded in against an eXact provides 43% trade credit off of a $31,158 50MP sensor digital back only (that is yes, capable of 1+ gigabyte files via 16 shot multi-shot).
Hasselblad and Phase One have generally shared similar initial price points with their respective lineups. But Hasselblad prefers to make sudden substantial slashes to their prices, while Phase One prefers to keep pricing where it is for as long as possible, and offer greater trade incentives at times. From a business standpoint, I'm not sure devaluing the price point of your products 30% - 40% at a clip within a year of their release is the smartest strategy.
But in general, I just don't see any real big difference as you see it, at least from the initial price offers. Hasselblad currently offers H5D-60 for $40,990, and Phase One offers IQ360/XF/80 for $41,990, and the lowest cost upgrade for each is around $18,000.
Steve Hendrix
Capture Integration