This is probably a good place to ask a question that's been bugging me for a while, which is: why do there seem to be so few players (and so few options) in the universal remote market?

I know a lot of people will use whatever universal came with their cable box, or are fine swapping between their multiple remotes and don't even consider the idea that they might want a universal. But, looking at the stuff coming out of CES every year, I see a whole lot of devices people want to sell me, but very few options for controlling them. The Logitech Harmony series has, what, three current models? Four? Then there are some offerings from URC, some lower-end models from One-for-All, then... what? In the medium-to-high end, there isn't nearly the variety I would expect.

I can't imagine even the highest-end remotes cost more than a few bucks to produce, yet some of them sell for hundreds of dollars. Surely there's some cost to develop the hardware and firmware, and test out the remotes with various devices, but I find it odd that there isn't more variety, and therefore more competition on price and features. Anyone have any insight into this?