Hi,
Most coins have two sides. Second hand prices dropping is obviously good for budget minded new buyers entering the market. It has also been my personal experience, I set a price tag for an MFDB at 10000$US and bought my P45+ for 9900$US from a buyer in Poland.
Interestingly, I was offered around 18000$US deal in rebate on an IQ-260 as soon I bought it.
The bad side of the coin is that selling gear seems harder now. Also, dealers give hefty rebates on upgrades but not on crossgrades. So you can update at reasonable cost from an IQ-160 to an IQ-260, but not from the IQ-260 to the IQ-250. A friend of mine here on LuLa and GetDPI can sing a symphony about it.
I have published a lot of my P45+ images, and I am aware of at least two people who bought into the Hasselblad system after seeing them. One of those users is Phase One owner, who bought the Hasselblad stuff in addition to her Phase One stuff. The other buyer didn't buy into MFD yet but bought a fine Hasselblad kit to be used with film.
I would also think that there is a great market for an affordable back, as there are a lot of folks sitting on old analogue MF-stuff.
Regarding the original issue, Phase One dealers have been talking a lot about a new Phase One camera that has not yet appeared. Phase One has made a lot of upgrades to old Mamiya 645 based camera, and such upgrades probably still can be done. Building a new MF DSLR may make little sense, as it is a major effort that would be done by Mamiya. Original Phase One is a more of an electronics company. With live view, it is logical to start looking into mirrorless.
Actually a significant part of Phase One's market is mirrorless, all technical cameras. Those cameras now have a decent what you see is what you get view finder in the form of live view backs. Combine an IQ-250 with an Alpa FPS and you have a mirrorless MFD. The FPS even controls aperture on Canon lenses (and so does the older Hartblei HCam).
Personally I am living in a Hasselblad country, that camera system was invented here and it is still produced here, sort of.
Best regards
Erik
Doug,
Might it not be that your stellar and deserved reputation as an honest, supportive and expert dealer, willing to go the extra mile to make sure the solution works for the customer, is causing people to come to your door, rather than other dealers, and growing your business? In particular, when it comes to pre-owned sales where ebay and forums would otherwise easily win out on price alone over any dealer? And that there is a growing adoption of institutional MF as curators accept the necessity of digital publication of their collections?
I am sure our meretricious friend Synn will feel free, as usual, to point out the obvious errors in all my assumptions ...
Edmund