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I would add to HarryT's remarks that it is quite possible that Amazon, with its much larger clout in the paper-book world as well as its entry into the ebook marketplace, was able to negotiate better prices with the publisher of those books than Sony, which currently only has clout in the ebook marketplace, could negotiate.
Publishers don't have any more loyalty to their customers than other corporations do, and will allow deeper discounts to some retailers than others, based solely on sales volume. And Amazon does a bigger business than Sony does, when it comes to book publishers. Even while certain segments of the population don't have access to those lower prices the publishers give certain retailers.
So don't blame Sony (entirely). On the other hand, they could attract a larger market share for the Reader as well as for it's ebook sales if it would adopt Amazon's pricing scheme and take some losses on sales of ebooks in order to gain larger market share for their hardware and eventually have more clout with publishers.
I'm hoping that the new partnership of Borders and Sony will produce just that sort of economic clout so that Sony will be able to negotiate better discounts for ebooks.
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