tjv - I totally agree. I think that they have the price point all wrong. Plus the design is awful. But they will change these. I bet we see the price coming in at $3,500 or so. Still too much in my mind, but slightly more palatable.
From an emotional POV I am annoyed too. I would have brought a digital XPan in a heart beat. However I think the market is too small to do this first. They need a banker product to start with. Granted what they showed is far from this banker product, but with adjustments ... could be.
Heck if I was being emotional and was running Hassy I would have brought back the 200FE with a large square 30MP back at a $7,000 - $8,000 price point. That would have brought back the 65% that Hassy have lost over the years. But then again I would be being emotional and I would bankrupt the company!! Still nice camera to have!
You touch on something that perplexes me about what Hasselblad and their new overlords are attempting to do.
They say they want to recapture their past relationship with enthusiasts, but in past, they did that with an aspirational, well made product that Pro or enthusiasts could use and expand upon over the years. Before I ever even thought of making money with a camera, I aspired to one day own a Hasselblad and Leica M. I scrimped and saved to acquire both.
In the face of all the changes in the photo world over decades, AF 35mms, newcomer 645s, etc. ... Victor's Hassey represented a special relationship between user and maker. An alternative way to make images. They never made an AF 35mm to capture the enthusiasts.
When digital appeared and became dominate, it was price that separated many of the MFD companies from their enthusiasts supporters, especially Hasselblad because the cameras became integrated, and one couldn't just buy a new improved camera body. Okay for pros more than for enthusiasts.
So, what baffles me is why Hasselblad did not simply make an enthusiasts MF version priced near top tier 35mm DSLRs? In reality, they were arguably in a better position to do this than Pentax was. BTW, Leica just did this with their new ME.
Then the marketing should have concentrated on the whole MFD experience and differences MF brings to the table ... with both its image characteristics and more importantly experientially. Then the references back to its historical role would have made more sense.
-Marc