[EatingPie]

Originally Posted by porkupan

I happen to have been watching Sony Readers' availability quite closely for years and years. So, let me tell you, the shortages have absolutely nothing to do with either earthquake or tsunami. Sony essentially stopped mass-shipping readers and covers in the midst of last year's X-mas season. The readers have been coming in somewhat sporadically, the stock of covers has never been replenished. Yes, you can still find a 350 or a 950 in Best Buy. They are being closed-out there. They have been closed-out in Borders (in fact, the 950 was never shipped to Borders stores, and both 350 and 650 were shipped only once, 650 not being available since winter). Taget? Walmart? Office Depot? Staples? You must be kidding me - none of these outlets ever had any stock of x50 readers to speak of. Some still sell 600 and 300, most have switched to kindle and nook. Even the staunchest online retailers, those who made the most money selling to the grey market resellers - Vanns, B&H, ABT - have long been listing the readers as discontinued.

The link I provided actually says why there are shortages. You should take a look at it. I offered up the Earthquake, since that was actual reasoning given for part of Sony's loss.

In terms of the stores I cited, please do a search. The only reader that cannot be easily had right now is the Black PRS-650. All the others are available on Sony's site, along with accessories. Similarly, my claims about Target, BB, etc. are all true. I forgot about Borders, but they filed for Bankruptcy.

We are both speculating. The Reader will be discontinued. The Reader will not be discontinued. The difference between us is that I am proceeding from verifiable factual information right now. Oh, and I have owned every generation of Reader, including the horrible PRS-600... so I think in terms of the "appealing to authority" fallacy, we are at an impasse.

The rumors about "Pearl display shortage" have been circulating since last fall, and they are patently untrue, judging by the mass market availability of kindles and now nooks.

I did not cite Pearl display shortage. I referred to "Reader shortage" in response/reference to your unverified claim that "Sony stopped shipping models to retailers." The only shortage I'm aware of began in December 2010, and was primarily the PRS-650 Black model.

Right now, every reader but the Black PRS-650 is available at Sony Style, among other retailers I listed.

I don't have the sales numbers. Do you? I've seen people buying kobos at Borders. I happen to personally know a lot of people who own the Sony Readers, but kindles and nooks is what I see most often in public. In fact, kindle is quickly becoming synonymous with "ebook reader" in the U.S.

You did not look at the link in my previous post?

As is very well known, Kindle does not release numbers. However, I agree that the Kindle is the de-facto best selling eReader on the market. It's actually becoming branded, as almost everyone calls my Reader a "Kindle," even though they know it's not an actual Kindle.

Any sales analysis I have seen from mid-and-late 2010 say that Nook is the #2 seller. One site had Sony at #4 behind some other unknown company, so I suspected they had some spurious results, but generally Sony is #3 in most speculations.

I do not deem Sony Reader as a failure. Not from the engineering standpoint anyway. That is Sony who appears to have deemed the Reader as a failure, making it a scarce commodity in an important market.

I'll let others decide what you meant by "the impending demise of a great product that was in many regards a technology and innovation leader is rather sad and puzzling for me..."

And once again, Sony does not "appear to have deemed the Reader a failure." I still offer my previous examples are evidence.

Perhaps you could explain to me, where are the covers? Make something up that makes sense!

Sure. The covers are on Sony's site. *shrug* Just do a search. The only cover that is sold out there is the PRS-650 "premium" without a light. I don't recommend that one anyway.

-Pie