Collectors/limited edition games

Last week saw the announcement of the Prestige Edition of Call of Duty: Black Ops. It comes with the game, a custom Black Ops limited edition medal, exclusive Black Ops Avatar outfit, four playable cooperative maps and a remote control surveillance car. The price you may ask? £129.99. I have to admit that i sometimes am a sucker to collectors edition and would be willing to spend some more money/or pick the collectors edition if the game came with decent extras for example, the limited edition of Tekken 6, which came with a hoody altogether for £70 and the Alan Wake collectors edition which came with book packaging and a bonus dvd which was for the same price as the standard edition. But spending more than £100 for a game and an extra which is no more than just gimmick? No thank you. I would rather spend less money on the standard edition of a game and not have to use up some space to store a gimmick item which does not benefit me at all in anyway. I do not mind if collectors editions come with extra in-game content, but if they come with extras like remote control cars which do not affect the in game experience then i believe that publishing companies are just trying to milk as much money as they can from big franchises like Call of Duty in order to maximise their revenue. Activision have already been down this path last year with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, releasing a £100 Prestige Edition which came bundled with a pair of night vision goggles and many other companies are following suit. Gran Turismo 5 is also being released with a "signature edition"  which includes a model car, a leather wallet, USB key, metal key fob and two books for the price of £149.99. Although prices are extraordinarily high, many people will still buy it, but will I? Nope, ill be sticking to the standard editions.

3DS

The 3DS has caused quite a stir among people in the video games industry, and i am personally looking forward to when it is released here in the UK. Nintendo announced that they will be announcing the release date and the price for the 3DS in late September. The price of the 3DS is a big talking point and there have been speculation that it will cost in excess of £150. The question is: will people be willing to pay that amount of money for a handheld console, which could ultimately go down the same path as the current DS with the lack of any great titles to attract the interest of the "hardcore" audience? In a recent episode of the Gamespot UK podcast (29/7/2010), one of the editors said that he was willing to pay £200 for it, calling it a "slice of magic". I personally would be willing to pay around £150 for the device. Yes, it is a revolutionary piece of hardware, and the 3D minus the glasses is a unique feature, and the titles which have been announced which include, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil Revelations, Starfox 64, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snaker Eater are A-grade titles, but £200 is the same amount for an Xbox 360 250GB console which provides HD gaming and online gaming with friends. The opinions of the Gamespot UK editor is based on the fact that he has been lucky enough to try the device whilst i have not been fortunate enough, i really do hope that i will be blown away by the Nintendo 3DS when i do eventually fork out the money for this "slice of magic".