Set to release this fall, “Legendary” edition is $150 with a 10-inch, 10-pound Noble Team statue; “limited” edition is $80 with exclusive armor, new secrets.

Originally posted at Geek Gestalt

Ahhh, Leica special editions. How you love to come out, and cost lots of money. The Hermès edition is no exception, though, as expected, the design is still 99.9% the same as the other Leicas. But this one has a delicious special-process orange leather grip, plus a special 35mm f/1.4 Summilux lens made using a new process that makes it as light as the black alloy lenses, but chromed like the heavier brass ones.

The owner says he’s going to take a lot of crap from other Leica people because he intends to never use the camera. Well, yeah, and here’s some right now! These things are meant to be used! I collect beautiful, expensive old books, and then when someone says “why are you reading that, you’re going to ruin it,” I tell them “it’s a freaking book!” It wants to be read.

Similarly, this is a camera. A rangefinder to be precise, but it needs to be touched and clicked and whacked against things on accident. That’s what cameras do. Ah well.

Leica loves to produce ultra special editions of its high-end cameras. The latest example is this $14k Hermes edition of the M7. Yes, $14,000 dollars for a film-based camera.

Now, if you happen to be from what Rush Limbaugh likes to call the “job creating class”, you better get your name on one of these quick. There will only be 100 produced under the Hermes name. And I think it’s important to remember that you would be spending roughly the equivalent of a Kia for a non-digital camera. Hey, if I had the ability, I probably would.

Infinity Ward has spoiled the hopes of Modern Warfare fanbois everywhere by doing their own pre-release unboxing of the special editions of Modern Warfare 2. A little weird having an unboxing for a game not coming out for another three months, but it’s worth it to see what’s in there. Sure, you got your special metal game case, your fun art book that you’ll read so many times, but the kicker is the functioning night vision goggles and sculpted head included in every “Prestige” edition of the game.

Considering a monocular night vision system costs at least $200 by itself (far more for a head-mounted binocular one like they have there), I’m guessing this edition is going to cost you slightly over MSRP for the game.

It’s cool, to be sure, but it’s like including a car with Need For Speed and then pricing the game at $29,000. These things are sold separately for a reason! And I play games with night vision in them because I can’t actually afford real night vision goggles, special edition ones or not!

[via Engadget]