Man, I thought the legendary Halo 3 "cat helmet" was bad. If you haven't seen it, Infinity Ward has really gone to great lengths to cash in on the Prestige Edition of their hotly anticipated Modern Warfare 2 game. For a whopping $150 (roughly equivalent to two full-priced 360/PS3 games and a DS game) you can get your copy of Modern Warfare 2 with a working pair of night vision goggles. What??

Sure, you get a lot of stuff for that cash aside from the goggles. Included in the package are:

  • Steel book with metallic finish (included in the $80 hardened edition)
  • Artbook (included in the $80 Hardened Edition)
  • Token to download the origninal Call of Duty (included in the $80 hardened edition)
  • Night Vision Goggles that is capable of seeing up to 50 feet
  • Collector's stand to hold your goggles that is individually numbered.
So really you're paying $70 for a pair of working night vision goggles which is good I suppose, if you're in the market for NVGs. My question is are games so expensive to make these days that developers are obligated to put out these expensive special editions, or is this just a cash-grab because Call of Duty is a popular franchise? A bit of both, I'd suppose.
I mean, if you can pull this off and people will purchase it, why not? I've seen a lot of fans who laughed when this was first announced, but I also saw a bunch of folks who were looking forward to getting it. Me personally, I'm going to stick with the cheaper Hardened edition, mostly because it has a free download code for the original Call of Duty. I'd be purchasing that game anyways, and it'll probably cost $10 on its own. Therefore an extra $10 for an artbook and nicer case isn't all that bad.
At the same time I'm starting to think we've hit the saturation point for limited editions of games. I remember when the concept was first applied to consoles with the limited edition steel case copies of Halo 2 and Doom 3 for the original Xbox. Those were only $10 more, and you got a simple metal case with a bonus DVD with "making-of" content. I liked those because they were cool enough to warrant the extra cash but also not so large or gaudy to become a hassle when considering storage.
So then I ask you, what would it take for you to spend $150 on a game? Does this extra swag suffice, or would it take a bit more? See the unboxing below for a better explanation of what exactly is in the box with those NVGs.