Actually it is an insider information straight from Sony - the way that housing of MH1 has to be manufactured is a very costly process. Sony is able to do it because they have massive manufacturing plant and can manufactured in very large quantity, thus resulting in relatively cheap part. The same housing (or even something that look somewhat like a MH1 housing), when manufactured by a third party (*cloner) will result in a much higher price tag. Why so? It is deliberately done so by Sony Mobile to deter copier. The original retail price tag of MH1 is about $80~$90, bulk price is around $25~$35. A fake copy will cost roughly the same as bulk package to make just a very slim profit - while if you look at something like EX700, priced over $300 at launch and a fake one can be sold at $100~$200 and only take around the same manufacturing cost of a fake MH1 (so we are talking about 5X to 10X the profit, if not more). If you are a cloner, you will be smart enough to know that there isn't enough meat left on the bone to clone MH1. Your better option is to clone EX700, or XBA-4, or any of the higher end models since that is where the money at. No one will risk jail time just be make enough for scrap.
Anyway, Sony is a big company. The Sony we are talking here is the Sony Mobile, which is a different department from the regular Sony Japan that makes most of Sony headphone. Despite your belief, Sony Mobile does care about fake and about MH1's performance. That's why their engineer is participating in the MH1 discussion here at Head-fi while you don't see a Sony Japan engineer doing the same thing here. Unlike Sony Japan, Sony Mobile only makes a handful of headset every year ( like 2~5 models) so they can keep track of the market much easier than Sony Japan. But sometime marketing decision is from higher power and there is nothing the engineer can do about it except to keep an eye out. That basically sum up why the bulk package is dumped in the first place.
Also, Sony Ericsson was basically run by the same group of people that run Sony Mobile before/after the 'buy out'. Nothing is really changed after the buy out but the name, well, except which HQ to call. I will like to tell you the detail of the whole mess but I have agreed not to reveal them. I can however tell you right now that I have had the Sony logo MH1 even before Sony completely bought the share off Ericsson. Things are not always as simple as they seem.
I think at least we can agree that Sony has nothing to do with whether you receive the right packaging or not. Of course no one can guarantee there is not single fake MH1 in this world, but at least for those who has paying attention, none has been spotted so far. I don't think you can ask for more than that on any headphone in a market full of fake.
