EB Games sells a lot of loot alongside actual games – some of it cool, much of it garbage – but I didn’t expect to come across the most expensive item currently available for pre-order at $948 during a casual browse this morning. Yes, we’re talking close to $1,000 for a novelty item.
I omitted the three upcoming consoles – the Nintendo NX, PlayStation 4 Neo and Xbox Project Scorpio – because none have been properly unveiled and therefore carry guesswork $999 placeholder prices that aren’t indicative of what you’ll actually pay. I’m talking confirmed R.R.P.
If you have a spare $948 lying around, come September 30, you can treat yourself to an Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – Jacob Frye Premier Scale Statue. A little digging reveals “premier scale” means 42 centimetres high; for nearly a grand, it’s not that impressive. Still, if you’ve got to have the very best loot money can buy at EB Games, this is it.
Yet, I can’t overlook the fact such expensive merchandise has been released almost a year after the game it’s promoting. It seems especially odd for an annual franchise that’s finally been given a highly deserved year off. Nevertheless, the hand-finished polystone piece is rare with only 500 available. This is the same tactic Wide World of Sports uses to get you to buy a $700 Nathan Lyon portrait every year during the cricket — it’s not really of interest, until Mark Taylor mentions it’s limited (to the number they can sell before releasing another version the next year).
It’s way more expensive than anything else
To put this into context, the next two most expensive pre-order items at EB Games are a double dose of upcoming hardware.
The next most costly item, for $350 less, is the 2TB Xbox One S Limited Edition Gears of War 4 bundle for $599.
Below that is a pre-order for the undated second shipment of PlayStation VR at $550 — we don’t actually know when you’ll get that (apparently before the end of the year).
The most expensive collector’s edition for an upcoming game is the Titanfall 2 Vanguard SRS edition for $430. It comes with a helmet replica and a scarf; but is it just me, or is that an insane price to pay for something to sit on your shelf? You can get a 500GB Xbox One S, just released, for less than that ($399). Although, I must confess to never being much of a collector.
Why am I bothering to make a note of this? Frankly, I found it hilarious. It caught me by surprise. I never thought I would find an odd, year-late, collector’s item so much more expensive than a limited edition console or VR headset at EB Games, and yet here we are.
Does anyone actually buy things like this at such exorbitant prices?
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