Quote:
Originally Posted by ardeegee
I don't think Sony is taking a principled stand on offering a premium reader for a premium price-- I think that Sony is just loosing a price war-- badly.
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I agree.
The argument than pricey equals quality is a psychological one. That is not always true. As a matter of fact, the opposite happens as well (not on this case of course) So people started to realize that they can get similar devices for a lower price and enjoy their ebooks too. Look at Amazon again. 1st Kindle was around $400 USA dollars. Now the Kindle 3G is being sold for $180 I think. They were smart and have adjusted their prices according to the market, supported by a strong ad campaign. Even my brother who lives in South America knows about the Kindle but has no idea about the others.
In my opinion, the ereader market is like the music market on lot of ways. Companies won't make as much selling mp3 players or CD players as selling music. The only exception to this could be Apple with their iPod, but still, I believe they make more money with their music store where you can sell and resell the same mp3 files that paid rights already and is being hosted virtually on a website. A player is hardware, can only being sold new, one time only.
Now you can get nice tablets for about $300 or $400 and they are nice. Why would you spend the same for an eink reader when you can buy two similar devices for half the price?