I think the big boys will still turn out the odd DSLR, especially entry level, however my feeling is that we've kind of reached the pinnacle of what these things can offer and new bodies are only an incremental upgrade of the previous version and as such probably not enough to tempt a lot of users to upgrade.
I think DLSR's will be aimed at the higher price points, as we have already seen Nikon taking features away from their base cameras to penny pinch, sorry, save money.
As parts become used in less cameras, the cost of parts will rise, so you aim for where the money is. Imho.
DSLR's are at the peak of their development. While Mirrorless are moving on from that point, with an embarrassment of new development opportunities ahead of them. Most of which we can not yet even imagine.
The mirror box has been an impediment to progress.
What is the problem with putting the sensors developed for mirrorless into DSLR's! You could get a similar AF performance when the mirror is up, and any other sensor benefits, whilst also using the sensors in multiple cameras to save on development cost, especially when the overall market is shrinking, and take advantage of the economy of scale.
They won't. The D850, D5 etc will be replaced with better DSLRS. The mirroless will account for a small fraction of sales compared to the DSLRS and will do for quite some time.
I linked to an article earlier, though links are a bit hard to see in the new design,
but a split about
60-40 in favour of DSLR's in 2018 was in an article posted by Photo Rumors along with other statistics, and the trend is only moving in one direction. 40% is not a small fraction for me. Yvmv. Now that Canon and Nikon have gone FF mirrorless the shift to mirrolress cameras being the majority of interchangeable lens cameras sold will come even sooner.
It will be interesting to see whether mirrorless takes over the apsc market. Mirrorless is almost made for cheap cameras. It cuts out all the precision fitting of mechanical/optical elements and replaces them with consumer electronics. These can be mass produced cheaply. Cut the sensor size down to apsc and the cost of the sensor and glass drop a lot.
I'm not sure the crop sensor is in their thinking for the most part. They seem to be going for mid to high cost FF mirrorless cameras, and the even more expensive lenses to go with them, I don't see how crop sensor mirrorless cameras are a benefit for Canon, Nikon or Sony. With DSLR's the crop sensor was a step needed to get affordable cameras when the cost of FF sensors was huge, and the cameras were able to be smaller. Now the cost difference between the different sensors may not be so large, especially if a higher proportion of sensors are FF sensors, and the camera can now also be small with a FF sensor, what would be the point of a slightly smaller camera, that there would be hardly any lenses for!
So as the the need to design lenses for crop sensor cameras may not be there, which they seemed to do half heartedly anyway, they put all their resources towards FF mirrorless cameras and lenses, rather than fracture the market when they don't need to.
Canon's M series may have been from when they were unsure as to go FF mirrorless, and wanted to test the water without impeding on their DSLR sales because the format does not seem to fit with the EOS R cameras and lenses in any way. Sony don't seem to be in a great hurry to update and improve their cropped sensor mirrorless cameras, or put too many lenses designed for crop sensor cameras out there too. Nikon seem to be struggling to do FF mirrorless cameras and lenses well, as well as keep on doing DSLR cameras and lenses, so to throw in a cropped mirrorless option, with potentially lenses designed only for cropped sensors, wouldn't gain them much imho, as the limiting factor for the size of their cameras (and Canon) now is the lens mount size. And are they big enough to have that many irons in the fire! I don't think so.
