Fuji Announces New Cameras - But Not the One I Want

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With CES imminent, expectations are high around announcements from the major vendors and with the success in 2011 of both the X100 (yuck) and the X10 (also yuck) Fuji is one of those major vendors.  Smart marketers those Fujians, getting their press releases out BEFORE the avalanche of releases that is CES.  And Fuji did not disappoint.  Well except for me.  Here's the text from the overlay release; and the links should be hot, unless I screwed up the post. FUJIFILM Corporation (President and CEO: Shigetaka Komori) is delighted to announce the new lineups of the FinePix digital camera series. The wide range of new FinePix lineups will provide customers even more convenient solution from capturing to sharing, professional to simple point and shoot, and satisfy and amaze all customers around the world with their exciting photography life.

The new cameras will be showcased at 2012 The International CES, Las Vegas, USA.

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That's a long list of cameras.  I had prior info about the SuperZooms and they make sense given the success in the holiday season of Nikon's P500 and Canon's 40xs is.  But, if I were a buyer for a camera store chain, I'd be filling the coffee mug with straight Lagavulin since it is clear that no one at Fuji has studied anything about the problems created by too much choice.  Looking at the list, I think of Lowe bags.  There are so many too choose from, buyers end up choosing none, or one that's not right.  Harvard Business School has done numerous studies on this "Too Much Choice" issue but plainly manufacturers in the photo industry are not paying attention.  Thus camera stores have buckets of inventory of products so close to each other from a single vendor that no one can readily tell them apart.  You'll note that Leica does not make this mistake and you'll also note that there are no M lenses to be found and that Leica sees fit to raise prices because of demand.

What did Fuji not announce?  Where is the X Pro, the interchangeable lens CDSLR/EVIL/Mirrorless/MILF that has been rumoured and of which photos already exist.  If, as Trey Ratcliff proposes, the future is not the DSLR, then the X Pro fits that niche and certainly there is space above the X100 and below the M9 for serious enthusiasts.  C'mon Fuji, get the lead out and get that new camera out.  As for the rest of your announcements, I'm sure that they are all really fine products, but frankly I'm bored and underwhelmed.  What is it the cool kids say?  Oh yeah.  Meh.