That is bonkers pricing. There is no way they actually expect a sell out with this price.
completely different camera but it's a straight up camera and not strange format. for people who are serious/professional about photography multiple thousands is stiff but that's what they cost.
I sense some resentment for people with money.
Personally, I don't find it hard to imagine at all that there's 350 photographers who whom $4000 is not a big deal (many of them on this site), who are looking for something interesting and new.
So by that measure, this is in the ballpark. It's a niche product, you'd have to be really into film photography, want a panoramic that uses 35mm film (vs a 6x9 or 6x12 medium format camera).
On the flip side, if you want to get something similar on a budget, you can 3d print a body and get a used large format press lens for <$2000 all in. But, that's far more on the tinkering/project side of the market, where the Widelux is very much in the luxury end.
It's my biggest peeve with artificial scarcity markets, speculators or collectors buy everything and people who actually want to use the item can't afford it.
The craziest thing is seeing companies closing because of saturation, and prices of discontinued products shooting up immediately.