I'm sure you can take a 5DMKII and D700 and improve them. However it doesn't make financial sense to do so for either company. Once you release it, it becomes very costly to update the hardware to use 100% of its resources because a mess up doesn't break the test mules in the lab, it hurts real users and has a cost in PR that is not worth the risk. Therefore we can expect nearly all cameras are not utilized as good as if companies spent years fine tuning them. After all, if sony didn't ship because they are tweaking with the firmware, the financial consequences would be a disaster bigger than if they ship with slightly under utilized hardware potential.
Not to say this is the same case in all examples but often yields of semiconductors mean lower binned parts are going to be repurposed for some lower spec model. we see this all the time with intel and AMD's budget chips. They may start as higher end models but due to yield issues they are crippled. Occasionally somebody hacks them somehow to enable more potential, but this solution doesn't work universally. We still don't know all the cons of this hack. It may be ok, it may not be. Whatever the case, even with a perfectly good part, it may simply be a cost move. Develop the same part, with some firmware to unlock the more expensive sku. There is nothing unethical about it. You paid less, you get less. Car manufacturers do the same, often shipping the same engine less aggressively tuned. you can reflash the ECU and unlock some gains too.
so this is business as usual. without spreading around RD cost in the high and low end offerings, you'd have to settle for less long term. These companies aren't charities. They need to turn a profit and as long as they are not lying about the spec sheet, you decide if what they offer is worth to you. In the case of the sony model, if it specs and price were better than the alternative at the time, who cares? clearly the competition should have been better if they wanted to make the sale.
Not to say this is the same case in all examples but often yields of semiconductors mean lower binned parts are going to be repurposed for some lower spec model. we see this all the time with intel and AMD's budget chips. They may start as higher end models but due to yield issues they are crippled. Occasionally somebody hacks them somehow to enable more potential, but this solution doesn't work universally. We still don't know all the cons of this hack. It may be ok, it may not be. Whatever the case, even with a perfectly good part, it may simply be a cost move. Develop the same part, with some firmware to unlock the more expensive sku. There is nothing unethical about it. You paid less, you get less. Car manufacturers do the same, often shipping the same engine less aggressively tuned. you can reflash the ECU and unlock some gains too.
so this is business as usual. without spreading around RD cost in the high and low end offerings, you'd have to settle for less long term. These companies aren't charities. They need to turn a profit and as long as they are not lying about the spec sheet, you decide if what they offer is worth to you. In the case of the sony model, if it specs and price were better than the alternative at the time, who cares? clearly the competition should have been better if they wanted to make the sale.
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