I personally think in this case it's more to do with the market for high end collectibles than the rising cost of materials and/or engineering. I'm a pro business guy, but one has to recognize that were competition is limited and demand remains constant, prices rise. And they will continue to do so until the market (that's us, guys) finds an inflection point. That is to say a price point, over which demand actually begins to shrink. Once this point is determined, that's when you'll see price stability and not before.
Now, all that said, we're also seeing figures come out with more light up features, and sound, etc. These, of course, are also reasons for price increase. And also, with some figures very heavy with additional features, there will inevitably be some pricing socialization too. HT Vader, for instance, has both light and sound features (albeit some more annoying than valuable). Even though that was an expensive figure at $299, I would not be surprised if some of Liea's cost didn't bear some Vader expense in addition to her own.
So what I'm saying is that even though these pricing considerations are multifaceted, I think the driver is that prices will go up until we get to the point where we're saying "pass" more often than "I'm in". Sometimes the added features are not even that expensive to produce, but it's what the companies can point to to cover the market argument I just made.
So, for the record, I just took four paragraphs to say EXACTLY what SilverStar said in one sentence.
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