Sony NEX Launch – detailed transcription

NEX design philosophy
The NEX system has been designed from a fresh start. A clean sheet of paper approach. We knew what we wanted to achieve and we knew the boundaries in which, the confines in which, we had to operate to deliver the product. But we actually wanted to radically change the way that you used the camera, and then alter its appeal to the consumer, and we think that we’ve done that in a totally different way to all of these other mirrorless styled cameras.
It’s a totally different user experience and the user we’re targeting is in this (upgrading consumer digicam owner) category because the SLR camera market is dominated by heritage brands. There’s the Canons, the Nikons, there’s ourselves on the back of the Minolta legacy, there’s Pentax and there’s the likes of Olympus.
Our Cybershot and all DSCs (digital still camera – industry term for consumer digitals) are in a range where you’ve got a plethora of products. You can buy anything from any brand, some you’ve heard of, many you haven’t and the majority of them take a reasonably good picture from a certain price point upwards. It’s actually getting more and more difficult to separate the brands themselves. They all have this feature or that, they all have a smart shutter, they all have this many megapixels, they’re all this small and they all have that much zoom.
So where is the defining factors? Is there actually anything different between any of them? Yes we’ve got features like sweep panorama at Sony, but it’s one feature in a cluster of lots of things on the ticket at retailers. How does the customer separate one from another? So the market’s a wash.
Do you buy a digital compact camera to replace your previous digital compact camera? You’ve probably had about four or five of them by now in the lifespan of digital camera development. Or are you ready for the next step? Do you actually want the best picture quality and some creative input in the way that you take your pictures? But actually you’re a little bit worried, you’re a little bit put off by what an SLR is and what it perhaps stands for. For most people an SLR is too big, too expensive and too difficult to understand and we do research on this. We’ve understood what the consumers’ voice is because we’ve listened to it since 2006 when we entered this market four years ago.
The cameras I’m about to show you and talk you through are thirteenth and fourteenth Alpha introductions since 2006. In four years we’ve launched twelve cameras, and this is the thirteenth and fourteenth. For the first time we are bridging the gap between digital compact cameras and what is truly digital SLR, and we believe globally that there is up to 10 million potential customers in this market, and our solution for their demands we’re calling NEX.
Our engineering department, our technicians and our designers wanted to deliver a product that was more closely suited to a digital compact camera than naturally a digital SLR. However, we wanted to deliver the quality and experience in photography that you take of a digital SLR but we didn’t want to go down the road of covering it with a plethora of buttons and external controls that make it appear complicated from day one.
That’s the sort of thing; it’s in there, it’s up to you to unlock it and use it to its full potential, so the day you pick this camera up for the first time you use it it can be as simple as your digital compact camera, because that’s our primary market – digital compact camera upgraders.
So here is the next focus, this is where we want to develop from. The largest potential for us is in the digital compact camera upgrader market, and at the same time we wanted to keep one foot in the sort of legacy part of digital SLR market because there is another customer, a niche market perhaps, but somebody like myself and the majority of you who are SLR enthusiasts. We know how to use an SLR – but actually at the same time you find an SLR itself to be big, heavy and cumbersome and not the sort of thing you would take with you all the time. Maybe NEX can provide that solution as well.
With a T on the end, this is your NEXt camera. Your next progression from a digital compact camera. It’s going to deliver you the quality and photographs that you’ve always wanted and it does movies too. So, shoot now, create well. Professional quality in your pocket. Take it everywhere. Take the best pictures and those pictures will make you go “wow” when you download them and show them to your friends and your family.
It is about giving DSLR quality and experience and control without the complication to a digital compact camera user, both stills and video. It’s got to be “cool”, it’s a Sony product after all so it’s got to look great – and it has interchangeable lenses, creativity, HD video and high-speed continuous shooting.