If you thought Final Fantasy 16's collector's edition was already far too much money, then look away now. As we've come to expect, this pricier version of the next Final Fantasy game is already being scalped on sites such as eBay, with most being advertised for around £600 - almost double the original price.
Some scalpers are being even bolder than that, with one listing the collector's edition for a staggering £999. This comes as legitimate purchases sell out, meaning that anyone who still wants to get their hands on this limited edition release will have to go through unofficial channels. Something scalpers are only too pleased to take advantage of.
Taking a look at eBay, you'll be lucky to find a copy of the collection that comes to just over £400, giving the seller an easy £100 profit. However, most are closer to £600, with one set at £999. Incredibly optimistic, given all of the far cheaper options up for grabs.
Of course, that's if you're lucky enough to nab one in your region. If it's coming from another country, you can expect to fork out another £40 for shipping at least. There's even one listing from the US where the shipping will cost you £111. So you'll have to be pretty desperate to go through these resellers.
Perhaps the wildest part of this is that the sellers don't even have the product yet. Final Fantasy 16 isn't set to launch until June 22, so all of these listings are just for pre-orders. Yup, people sell their pre-orders, that is indeed a thing people charge money for. Amazing.
In any case, once it is with us, it will come with a bunch of physical goodies, such as the Phoenix vs Ifrit statue, and digital rewards, like accessories and a digital art book.
With the official stock now sold out, this is the only way you can pick up the collector's edition if you missed it the first time around. Although we've come to expect this, as any kind of limited edition version of a game is bound to attract scalpers, looking to make a quick buck.
Most recently, the Resident Evil 4 Remake collector's edition was being resold at almost twice its original price. These prices seem to have come down slightly since the game's launch, so that could be a good omen for Final Fantasy fans. However, if I had to guess which collector's edition would be more sought after, my money would be on the Final Fantasy 16 package. So we might not see them become somewhat affordable just yet, especially when they were already sold for £329.99 when you could nab it on the Square Enix store. We can almost definitely rule at any more being made too, so it remains to be seen if the price ends up falling at all.