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Comment by jcims | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have the inside scoop on why Sony seemingly abandoned the NEX platform? I bought the NEX6 in 2013, it was released at the end of 2012 and the last firmware update is v1.03 released ~15 months later. Based on my experience, they didn't run out of bugs to fix.

The alpha 6000 was released in 2014 and the last firmware update is 3.21 released in 2019.

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They abandoned the NEX branding a long time ago, but they released a couple of APS-C Alphas at the end of 2019. I bet there are more to come, unless they're going to drop the <$1000 consumer market.

I’m just wondering why I spent 1200 bucks on a camera that got three firmware updates and then nothing nothing else from the manufacturer. The software stack on these things is just getting bigger and it doesn’t give me any confidence to buy another Sony in the future.

Like with most products, you bought for what it was at the moment of sale. Buying a buggy product and hoping that it will get fixed afterwards is just a fools errand in general.

Nikon, Canon and others continue releasing updates for a long time, though. If anything Sony is the odd one in this market.

I'm not asking for a refund. I'm just saying that I will preferentially purchase products from vendors that continue to invest in their product line.

Besides this looks like a product team that got fired or didn't get renewed or something. There are contemporary Alpha cameras that are still getting updates, but the NEX was just a flash in the pan.

As a mere amateur, how important is firmware to a camera?

I have two Sony cameras - an Mk1 RX100 and a A7R III, both acquired shortly after their initial releases. I don't think I've ever updated the firmware on the RX100, and just once on the A7R III (I believe it was to get the uncompressed RAW capability), mainly due to laziness. But for my amateur level use, I don't think I've ever had any problems.

For some manufacturers it matters more than others. Sony doesn't support their cameras much after launch. They could theoretically update some color science (something that does matter) or add some minor features, but I've never updated my A6100 and I don't think there's any updates available anyway. To contrast, part of Fujifilm's market value is in their "film simulations" which are effectively more advanced LUTs that (mostly) attempt to mimic different film stocks, and Fujifilm has been known to have good long-term support for bringing new features (including film simulations) to older cameras through firmware updates. For example, the Fujifilm X-Pro2, released in 2016, received a firmware update in September of 2020. It only optimized performance for a newer lens and fixed some bugs, but the fact it got anything at all 4 years after launch does not appear to be the norm.

It can be very important. For example, Fujifilm released a firmware update for the X-T3 (2018) that provided some huge gains in autofocus performance, bringing the autofocus in line with the newly released X-T4.

There have also been some updates that e.g. allow better use of the camera as a webcam.

The problem though (unless I'm incorrect) is that without firmware updates, newer lenses may not perform proper in camera correction for the lens design; you'd be forced to post-process everything on a computer.

Sony’s entire APS-C storyline is a bit fuzzy.

(Honestly, Canon and Nikon don’t exactly tell a coherent story there either…)

It’s really unclear if they ever want to fully flesh out the lens line for that sensor size, and they don’t seem to have much enthusiasm for the line. Honestly, they seem to just want to sell full-frame.

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