what a turn of events...lol.
I wasn't planning on buying the Duke exclusive anyway, so I didn't notice the price on him was $5 more too. Binoculars definately don't warrant a price increase either.
I hope I'm wrong, but this looks like a very sad trend coming. Maybe the only freebies anymore will be silly cheap stuff like Lembas bread, numchucks, an extra hand, etc.
This is the wrong thread, but this goes to prove that each accessory definatetly carries a price tag, so I think its silly to include extra ones that a lot of people won't use (such as the GI Joe laser rifle). Instead, why not pack these types of things into accessory packs so people have a choice to buy or not?
For every $5 or $10 more a figure costs you start eliminating customers... and EVERY COLLECTOR suffers when people stop collecting because it means SSC has to continue allocating more of the indirects and fixed costs to each existing customer, which causes prices to increase even more, which causes more to quit....
SSC needs to head this off and try to offer good value again to regain some ground. IMO its apparent their QC can't compete with HT in regards to producing amazing $100+ figures, so whats wrong with $70 figure and produce them in the thousands like the old days?