Pity if you will poor old Sony. First they get themselves into all sorts of trouble with the rootkit DRM CDs fiasco (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/16/sony_withdraws_xcp_cds/), then incur the wrath of the e-tailing community by ramping up (http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/11/15/sony_variable_pricing/) wholesale kit prices for online stores, then, well, how can it get any worse?

Here's how: yesterday, anyone popping down to sonystyle.com (http://www.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. ®

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