I've got a foot in both camps with this really.
I shoot with Nikon professionally as a stills shooter and it would make my life easier not to say cheaper if they were to push further/harder on the video side so that I wouldn't have to use my Panasonic/Blackmagic and RED gear for motion projects.
On the other hand, I don't really want them to be diverting any resources away from developing and supporting what the core discipline it is that I'm using it for.
Whilst its true that they don't have a cinema line to protect they do have their base to protect and, at least in the area of the business I'm in, they are in hand to hand combat with Canon for control of it. I can't imagine there'd be much appetite for diverting any resources away from those areas and risk losing that battle to fully open up a second front that they would already be playing catch up in.
When I'm working at a major event and one of my bodies or lenses develops a fault, I'm not going to be too thrilled to go to the Nikon service desk and find out that they're all doing a roadshow at a local dealer trying to flog the D5 as a film making tool.
Thats not me being conservative or a luddite, it just that I'm making a living from using their gear for what both they and I have determined its best suited for. Its a trust thing where I trust that they'll build and maintain a system that I can use for the purpose I need it and they trust that I'll keep buying 5 grand bodies and 8 grand lenses off them if they do!
These things are only tools and as it currently stands, Canon make great chisels and great screwdrivers and frustratingly compromised chiseldrivers.
Nikon make great chisels and maybe the lesson they've learnt from Canon is that chiseldrivers aren't just a bad idea merely because you've got a screwdriver line to protect but because chiseldrivers are just not a very good tool full stop.
RED tried this the other way round.
I was suckered into the idea that EPIC would herald a brave new world with its stills extraction and whilst yes it could do it, it was just so clunky to be rendered useless for anything other than very specific controlled circumstances. And could be outperformed by a dedicated device a fraction of its price just as my D5 is for video by any number of consumer mirrorless devices.
What I don't really get though is the scorn for Nikon and by extension its users for them not diving headlong into this stuff. They make very good chisels and people who just need chisels are quite happy with them. It doesn't mean these people don't know what a screwdriver is or even don't have a use for a screwdriver. They just, you know, use a screwdriver for that stuff.
