Wish I could say yes. Really wish I could. I want there to be multitrack machines made again. But it's about as likely to happen as people around the world settling their differences with arm-wrestling matches instead of wars.
Before tape machines are made again, people need to change. I look around me and all I see are people who care more about themselves and most of them can't plan beyond two days in the future; they probably probably have short memories as well. They need to stop valuing ease and convenience over quality. We can't even get consumers to pay for the music they listen to now, it's been devalued so much by radio, illegal downloading, and streaming. If consumers want something in large enough numbers it can happen, but I don't see that they've ever looked deep enough to care about magnetic tape. If they know anything, it's that analog is cool again and records are coming back, and that's as far as it goes, or they chalk it up to "stupid hipsters" and move on. Trying to explain to any of them that a record isn't analog if it came from a digital source does no good because most of them have never had to concentrate hard enough to hear the difference, and what do you say to someone who can't stand the fact that you don't care about their opinion of what isn't cool? Then again, go listen to what people consider music these days and it wouldn't be a surprise. I usually try arguing that people are intelligent and that they can rise above their current state, but sometimes I get so tired of being proven wrong.
A lot of musicians/engineers that do care about the sound are forced into digital recording because it's what their clients want. Then there are the people who for whatever reason, just don't hear The Difference. A lot of studios are offloading their tape machines, and they've made their way into the hands of the project studio crowd. Every studio owner I've talked to in the last few years that still has a tape machine says that no one's asked to use it for a very long time.
I'm a big fan of film and old cameras, and I've learned a few things from that that can be applied to the whole magnetic recording industry:
Manufacturers learned years ago that they earned more profits not only by using cheaper parts and labor, but also because if things were made cheaper and broke down sooner, people would be forced to buy them again. Look at how the software industry runs today: when does the next version of Logic or Pro Tools come out? If someone started making multitrack machines again, they'd be competing against plenty well-made machines still out there that are over 40 years old, but which will cost so much less than what a new one will. There has to be the number of people in place willing to buy a new tape machine to make it worthwhile, and I don't see that that is the case. Right now, I'd say the only question is how long the community we do have can keep the tape manufacturers in business. The machines we do have might well last another century or more, if people can still buy tape to feed them, but the way RMGI and ATR run their business, who knows how long they can keep it up? While I'm sympathetic with people buying NOS or used tape, it seems to me that if people aren't going to keep the manufacturers we do have afloat, tape machines will die a lot quicker than otherwise.
In some ways, the music side has it worse than the photo side. There are people out there selling brand new large format field cameras for $200, made from plywood, and all of the old-time photographic processes from the mid-1800s are still viable. I had a tintype of myself made just a few days ago. God knows how much it would cost to make a tape machine from scratch, but I'm guessing you wouldn't be able to sell one for $200.
Doom and gloom seems to be the words of the day today, sorry. Have I argued this before? I dunno.
It would be interesting to see if a crowdfunded project could be successful in trying to bring back the multitrack recorder, if they could source all the parts. Is there a thread about that somewhere?