How many A mount lenses are out in circulation? Sony, Konica Minolta, Minolta, Tamron, Sigma, Tokina, etc. A mount lenses. Sometimes I hear figures for the number of Canon EF mount lenses and Nikon F mount lenses, but I don't recall hearing about A mount. Whatever the number is it must be quite large. Not as large as Canon and Nikon, but still large. Also, Sony has a pretty big and diverse set of A mount lenses they sell. From time to time they add a new one and update older ones.
For a smaller company such as Nikon it probably takes a lot of, maybe too much, resources to support more than one or two lens mounts. Sony is a very big company though so maybe it is not really so difficult for them to support the A mount, E mount, and FE mount.
A continuing trickle of updated A mount bodies seems to not be so difficult for Sony. Every 2-4 years update the sensor, use newer, faster CPUs and other components, tweak features, etc. The flipping mirror is gone so even A mount bodies don't have many intricate moving parts that need such expensive and careful alignment. Over time, no doubt, Sony is trying to normalize as much as possible across the three mounts so that some of the cost of development and manufacturing can be shared. Takes time to do that, but I bet they have already made progress.
The A mount probably still creates profit and with so much of the development already done then future incremental upgrades may not cost as much as one might think, especially if some of the components and firmware modules can be used across the mounts.
Using an E or FE mount body with adapter, of course, allows use of the A mount lenses, but many people prefer a native A mount body which works with them much better.
I suppose Sony may not be able to decide yet what to do, but it would have been good for them to make some sort of statement about commitment to keep people from drifting away.
Anyway, just a bit of musing while I was out walking in Sapporo on a rather dark, cold day.
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