five things keep prices up:
a. high cost of development and production
b. relatively small number of consumers (comapred with, say, # of people who buy dvd players or computers)
c. small number of producers of said product, since competition drives prices down
d. willingness of consumers to pay price...if they wouldn't or couldn't, prices would drop somewhat
e. companies exist to make profit off of production, not supply consumers with low-cost, high-quality goods