I am not sure where the scandal is here. Playbooks were selling for $499 in Q1 and Q2, and that was for the basic model. Now they get marked down to $199, so the $485M writedown represents about 1.5-1.6 million Playbooks written down by $300 a piece.
This is an inventory writedown so probably RIM ordered from the manufacturer way more Playbooks than they actually ended up selling (no news here) and whatever inventory was in the "warehouses" so to speak got written down.
Part of the "scandal" the article mentions is the possibility that a portions of RIM's recorded revenue does not quality as such, since it could have been for Playbook's that could be returned to RIM.
This is an inventory writedown so probably RIM ordered from the manufacturer way more Playbooks than they actually ended up selling (no news here) and whatever inventory was in the "warehouses" so to speak got written down.