Sony has always had the home team advantage in Japan, but in the e-book world they are a bit late to the game in the land of the Rising Sun. Rumors of a Q4 launch for the Sony Reader lineup started back in May, and it looks like for once the rumor mill is actually coming true. 

Starting December 10th Sony is getting set to offer the 5” pocket and 6” Reader Devices in Japan at a price of ¥20,000 ($237) / ¥25,000 ($297), respectively. In addition to the hardware release Sony is also planning to unveil its new online e-bookstore with close to 20,000 launch titles. 

Given just how late to the game Sony actually is you would imagine they would be humble about their future sales prospects, but then again this is Sony we are talking about. According to a company spokesman they expect to sell 300,000 in the first 12 months, and plan to hold more than half of the Japanese e-reader market by 2012.

Is Sony setting its expectations too high? Or will Japanese consumers buy up anything Sony?  

Being a PC enthusiast and a gadget nerd go pretty much hand in hand, but have you ever wondered what it actually cost the manufacturers to assemble your army of iPod's and book reader's? Well wonder no longer because marketing research group iSuppli and Business Week have teamed up to tear down over 25 popular gadgets and have come up with what they consider a pretty accurate ball park picture of the manufacturing costs. Some of the results appear to be a bit out of date, particularly when it comes to the consoles, but it still gives a pretty good overview of how much money each product is raking in.

As you would expect most gaming consoles continue to sell at a loss, but many of the popular new smart phones actually make a fair bit of money when you factor in the kickbacks they probably get from the carriers. You can check out the full article to read about all 25 of the gadgets from the tear down, or review our sampling below for some of the more interesting snippets to save you time.

Gadgets
Apple iPad $499 MSRP - $219.35 Cost
Amazon Kindle $259 MSRP - $185.49 Cost

Phones
Apple iPhone 3GS $199 With Contract - $176.16
Google Nexus One $179 With Contract - $174 Cost
Motorola Droid $199 With Contract - $185 Cost
Palm Pre $200 With Contract - $137.83 Cost
Blackberry Bold $300 With Contract - $169.41 Cost

Consoles
Microsoft Xbox 360 $399 MSRP - $470 Cost
Sony Playstation 3 60GB $599 MSRP - $840 Cost

Any of these prices surprise you?