The Sony RX100 Is Already #1

If you ever wanted evidence to prove that producing a truly impressive, kick-ass camera, and not listening to idiot executives who seem to think that keeping their marketing 101 book in their trunk makes them experts, is a good idea, it's what's going on right now.

First, the Sony RX100 has immediately become the #1 camera on Amazon. The most expensive compact camera ever made is #1. Why didn't the Canon G1X or Fuji X10 nab that honor? Because while customers will happily pay, they want actual quality and innovation. The Canon G1X was an eight-hundred-freaking-dollar camera with a lens that only dropped to f/2.8, and the X10 was $600 while sporting a tiny-ass sensor and disappointing lens. That's not the way to get people to part with hard-earned coin.

Second, the Olympus E-M5, which has been rolling out into the market and only recently became widely available, is already the #1 Olympus camera on Flickr.

Third, and similarly, the Fuji X Pro 1 is selling so quickly, its market availability can actually be tracked by Flickr's camera chart. It rockets up as people get their cameras, flatlines as the shipments to market slow, then rocket up again as more cameras become available.

We've seen similar results with every groundbreaking camera that's been released in the past two years. We saw similar results from the launch of the Sony NEX-7 and NEX-5n, the latter of which quickly became Sony's most popular Flickr camera. Fuji's X100 saw insanity when it, while costing well over $1,000, drew immediate acclaim, and even with a panoply of glitches and problems, became far-and-away Fuji's most popular camera on Amazon and Flickr.

People want groundbreaking stuff. They are willing to pay for it. They don't want the same crap, packaged in something new, and priced in the sky, like Nikon's "1" and Canon's G1X.