I actually do have quite a few years of experience in this market and the background to the bad blood between Hasselblad and Phase One. Here is a link to an extended discussion from 2011 on Luminous Landscape about it that I started. https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=50728.0;wap2. My first digital system was an H3D-39 that I purchased in 2006. In 2009, I purchased a Phase P65 and used it with an H2. ($40k at the time.) Then, in 2012, I purchased an IQ180. I was not even aware that Phase also offered cropped sensor backs; they would not have interested me. I remembered well that in 2016 Phase was ridiculing the X1D and the GFX with cropped sensors as not "real" medium format digital systems. However, I had forgotten just how hypocritical they were and that they had actually been selling cropped sensor digital backs themselves. And, it's been a long time since Phase introduced a cropped sensor back. The IQ250 you reference as "super recent" was introduced in 2014. That's 10 years ago, not exactly "super recent."The IQ3 50, the last back Phase offered with a cropped sensor, was introduced in 2015.
More to the point, the issue you have focused on is really irrelevant and a complete diversion from the basic point I made that I did not believe Phase was locking Hasselblad out of C1 because Phase considered Fuji or Hasselblad a competitor today, not 10 years ago, vis-a-vis the camera systems offered by Phase One. Phase only offers a 150MP full frame sensor system; no modern, mirrorless cropped sensor system. Compare a Fuji GFX 100 II with 3-4 lenses to a Phase XT and 3 or 4 lenses. Vastly different capabilities with vastly different price points. Notably, Phase opened up C1 to the GFX line, which if anything would be more of a threat than Hasselblad. Rumor had it that Fuji paid a significant ransom to Phase to facilitate that. C1 is also open to the Pentax 645Z and the Leica S cameras, right? So, Fuji, Pentax and Leica are not threats but Hasselblad is? Or, is it bad blood, which some here were inclined not to believe but was actually confirmed in writing recently by the Phase CEO, and Phase is unwilling to let go unless they can squeeze Hasselblad for another ransom like Fuji? Phase not only refuses to "support" Hasselblad files; they have actually programmed the C1 software to prevent a DNG from a Hasselblad camera to even be opened in C1 so that a C1 user can at least add the Hasselblad file to their C1 catalog.
I have no dog in the hunt about Phase One's future. I hope they survive and thrive and make products that photographers want to buy. My perceptions of whether Phase is on an upward or downward financial trajectory with the hardware or the software side of its businesses are just that. My perceptions. Nobody should TRUST me. If one of those young photographers you are concerned about being misled is in the market for a technical camera and a set of lenses for $75,000, they should be confident in Phase and buy it. It's a great product, if it fits your needs. However, instead of the diversion you have raised to to sidestep the real issues that have been discussed here, I suggest you look at the facts with your own eyes and ask yourself whether Phase One is in a stronger position today as a purveyor of medium format camera systems and Capture One software than it was when the company was last acquired in 2019. IMO, the management of the company completely dropped the ball in anticipating where the market was headed and failed to develop products to compete. If Hasselblad, which was apparently on financial life support, was able to pull it off, Phase surely would have been capable of doing it.
As for the future development of Sony sensors for the medium format market, my understanding is that the sensors used in medium format cameras/backs are the same basic sensor design used in the FF market by Sony and others. The availability and cost of cropped medium format sensors using the latest Sony sensor technology will be driven by Fuji and Hasselblad, not Phase. Phase is no longer in the position of driving that market. Phase will have to fend for itself in sourcing new full frame sensors. Given the decline in the market for systems with full frame sensors, the unit cost to Phase for sourcing a new generation of full frame sensors could increase significantly. The cost presumably is a function of volume. The price of an IQ4 is already in the stratosphere. Is there any limit to the price point that the market can bear for an IQ5?
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