Epson to get into 3D Printing - but not the small ones.

We know that Hewlett Packard is getting into 3D Printing. It looks like Epson may be as well. However they will not be targeting the at home designers and printers. They will be targeting the corporations and large companies.

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Epson's presence at CES 2014 this year focused on its surprising push intowearables. But the company name remains almost a synonym for printers -- the two-dimensional ones at least. There are plenty that reckon the likes of Epson, HP .etc will soon weigh in with their multinational clout on the 3D printer market, slashing the average price with everyman models, but Epson won't be doing that. President Minoru Usui told us that probably wasn't going to be the case, at least for them. "We are developing our own printers, but our aim is to change everything. When it comes to 3D printing... we want our machines to make anything."
Breaking it down into three issues he saw with 3D printing as it stands, he said that printing materials were not at a high enough standard, that the precision was simply not there for what the company would like to be creating and productivity was simply not efficient enough. We've had some experiences that mirror these criticisms. But wouldn't a printing giant like Epson entering the 3D printing arena make it more of a realistic proposition? Mr. Usui responded by describing how the company claimed a lion's share of the photo printing years earlier, citing better print quality and hardware. "Not many people need to print a plastic figure."
That said, Epson is working hard developing its 3D printing tech, but fixing that list of problems is going to take time -- especially when it comes to materials. Usui wants the company to be able to print "anything" and reckons that could take around five years from now. And anything really means anything: the president mused on printing cars, which would make that eventual manufacturing hardware a fair bit bigger than a Cube 3.

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Entire article at: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/09/e...inter-ces-2014

Something I found very interesting is that he said they will change the industry in a big way. They must have something up their sleeves. He also saids he wants to make it so people could print out cars, or at least most of the parts.

I have a feeling Epson has something up their sleeve that won't be announced for a while. At least that's what it sounds like.

They say that within 5 years they will have ironed out their kinks and be ready to have a 3D Printer ready for industrial use. I don't know about you, but I feel that in 5 years time, there will be too many big players in the 3D Printing market to really be able to break in. I think 5 years will be too late for Epson to really matter.

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Originally Posted by MadMikeMitchell

They say that within 5 years they will have ironed out their kinks and be ready to have a 3D Printer ready for industrial use. I don't know about you, but I feel that in 5 years time, there will be too many big players in the 3D Printing market to really be able to break in. I think 5 years will be too late for Epson to really matter.

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Agreed. Im not sure about "Too" many, but there will be a lot of new players, many which are large corporations. Apple, HP, Epson, who knows who else. The more the merrier for the consumer. Competition leads to lower prices and better technological progress :)