In the rare event a borrower went under, his land collateral was as good as gold anyway since legions of land-use restrictions acted as virtual government price supports.

FORBES: Opiate of the masses

"Many customers suggested they were unlikely to switch from VMware to Hyper-V at any price, since Hyper-V lacked virtual machine mobility as well as other higher-level features such as disaster recovery, " Rueppel wrote in an April 1 research note.

FORBES: VMware's Future Challenge

Hirano says sales of add-on game content or in-game virtual goods will help companies to make up for the initial lower price point.

FORBES: Konami: Kinect And Move Need Games For Core Gamers

The price of this dependence was paid in the first quarter of 2005 when household spending came to a virtual standstill.

ECONOMIST: A weaker economy needs easier money