Personally I think there are limits as far as big companies buying out the small RB manufacturers. Most RBs are made from largely machined parts, which is expensive to produce if you want to do it high volume. Take the Meg for example, except for the T-pieces everything is machined. The PRISM is the one notable exception, with the entire head assembly, mounting board, cowling, elbows, connectors etc all being molded. Mind you, not high volume injection molding, but at least molded. The DSV and a few other bits are machined, and that's it. Same with the Sport Kiss, BOV is machined (and the limiting production factor), whereas the Classic Kiss is almost entirely machined. Ouroboros, almost entirely made from machined parts.
Each of them manage around 100 to 150 units annually, some not even that. Unless you can mass produce the unit and sell them in considerable higher numbers to offset the expense of injection molds I doubt too many manufacturers will be interested. Aside from any liability considerations.
Scubapro, Aqualung and Mares are the "big three" in the dive biz. Aqualung just dumped Dräger, and Mares bailed on OMG (Azimuth) before it ever hit the civilian market. Don't think Scubapro ever tried.
Oceanic is a pretty big kahuna, the Oceanic/Aeris/Pelagian/Hollis/ProA Taiwan group has about 550 employees. Once they're setup for high volume production I can see that PRISM thing taking off. At least if they make the needed changes to update the unit with some new features (BOV as mentioned, maybe integrated deco and offboard gas management as options) and stronger materials. The PRISM has a pretty bad rep in that respect.
AP is the 8000 lbs gorilla in the CCR biz right now, and doing well. They build a lot of rigs and sell them as fast as they can ship them.
Hasn't made the units less expensive. Since I've known the Inspo it went from $5800 to $6200 to whatever they cost now, with Vision units costing around $10000. The Optima, highly touted to be the first $5000 CCR costs about the same fully loaded. Meg? $8500 +, the new Hammerhead over $10000. Even the new Cis-Lunar, an entirely recreational unit that doesn't allow for deep dives, doesn't offer a secondary or manual gas addition, much less offboard gas management or He capability is still supposed to cost $6200 ... not much to write home about.
If a company makes the considerable investment into expensive molds, spends a lot of money on engineering, and has to worry about liability claims in case something goes wrong, they're not gonna start lowering prices. Why would they, as long as we're fool enough to pay the high ones. :mooner:
