GoPro and RED are definitely shaking things up in the camera business. The japanese companies are just too slow/old school to keep up.

Both also uniquely have excellent proprietary video codecs - RED has http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDCODE and GoPro acquired http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CineForm

AFAIK GoPro 3 is using Sony sensors, yet Sony can't seem to get it's act together to produce a decent GoPro competitor (ActionCam).

My money long term is on high quality sensors from Sony etc. running on Android, and h.265 for higher resolutions/framerates rivaling offerings from GoPro and RED. Give it 1-2 years.