Pity if you will poor old Sony. First they get themselves into all sorts of trouble with the rootkit DRM CDs fiasco, then incur the wrath of the e-tailing community by ramping up wholesale kit prices for online stores, then, well, how can it get any worse?

Here's how: yesterday, anyone popping down to sonystyle.com and typing "USB" into the search field was rewarded with the following tempting range of offers:

Sadly, this product is no longer available, having gone the way of the XCP CD. We're sure, though, that third-party web retailers would be delighted to stock this Xmas stocking-filler, assuming of course that the wholesale price is right. ®