[readingglasses]

There's also secondary business that the primary business generates to consider.

If sony sells few devices, at a high price, that's still going to be far fewer ebooks sold than if they sold many devices,creating a market. One reason they never hit a big market in their online ebooks store is that they didn't sell the volume of devices to get ebook readers familiar with their online book brand. Kindle sold high because even at a high price, everyone knew amazon and that volume of sales fueled more ebook sales. Sony remained exclusive and became even more exclusive, without volume sales. Whether due to lack of parts availability or exclusivity.

It may be a combination, if they couldn't get the supply of parts, then why not keep the price high, at least get money that way, since they sell out.
However, all this talk of sony selling out "everywhere" is just a rumor. Maybe lots and lots of sony stores and other stores like bestbuy/walmart/borders NEVER sold out. Borders at closing was practically giving them away, according to reports just around here. Sounds like sony in fact had supply in many places and the price just didn't allow the merchandise to move. A mistaken calculation or purposeful pricing by sony management, who knows?

Reducing business to a question of supply/demand around a single device, for each device, seems a little too rube-capitalism-worshipper to belong anywhere but american right wing talk radio.