Whats stopping flash drives from entering the mp3 player market?

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I've come across an article regarding the new microsoft zune's having an 8gig flash drive. If sony can make a thumbnail size 4gb flash disk - what's stopping this technology from being expanded upon to larger sizes? Wouldn't it be faster and more compact?
 
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Price and scarcety of high density large capacity chips.
currently it's more profitable to put them into $500 cell phones than $50 MP3 players.
 
First, they already have. Those small mp3 players that just plug into the USB are effectively a flash drive, with a battery and controls. In fact you can use those type of players to carry regular files. Second, larger sizes cost more. About a year ago, I think, I saw an add for large capacity flash drives up to 16 gig. The 16 gb one cast to the order of about $1400.