I already have the German one...otherwise Zavvi would have had this added to my Ratatouille e-mail!!!
So if you pre-ordered this and Ratatouille Zavvi have stung you for £10!!!
Zavvi really don't give a damn for their loyal customers/collectors who like to pre-order the more "attractive" steelbooks (Disney & Pixar) in case they actually do "sell out"!!!!
WORST. COMPANY. EVER!!! Don't you wish somebody else would take the reins up....Amazon UK have practically given up on steelbook exclusives..HMV have NO website!!!! Play disappeared!!
such a shame!!!
I know exactly where you are coming from as nobody likes to pre-order something when the price is say GBP17.99 for it to be shown as 'Sold out' for weeks only for it to come back priced at GBP 12.99 and stay at that new price for ages.
Your first reaction on buying it before it 'sells out' is "Thank God I got that before it sold out" but when it comes back at a fiver cheaper your reaction will understandably be somewhat dfferent !!!
There must be so few UK steelbook collectors around that a 2,000 print run or even a 1,000 run doesn't REALLY sell out at pre-order even if it is shown as 'Sold out'
- let's see what happens to 'The Terminator' at or near release date. . .
I imagine there must be exceptions to this where a steelbook was REALLY 'Sold out' at the pre-order stage and NEVER came back in stock but I can't think of one . . . 'King Kong' maybe???
This seems to happen to many steelbook releases not just those from only a few weeks ago such as 'The Departed' or 'Gangs of N.Y.' which though very beautiful are now several quid cheaper than they were at pre-order.
Other recent examples are the Gallery 88 range which are all a fiver cheaper now than at the pre-order stage - GBP 9.99 now instead of 14.99 at pre-order,though slightly less than that if a discount code was used - several of these were 'Sold out' for weeks (two come to mind - 'Kung Fu Hustle' and 'Superbad') before magically reappearing.
I'm not saying this is a bad practice and I admit it has caused me to cancel a whole raft of pre-orders recently as I felt almost as if I was being mugged but the POSITIVE side to this practice is that you should be able to pick up your steelbook of choice considerably cheaper further down the line if you have the patience.
Regarding HMV online: It was certainly a pain if you were looking to buy their exclusive steelbooks due to the closure of the majority of local branches (and if you still have a branch open it might not be quite so local and not economically viable to go there just for one or two steelbooks).
You were then forced to join a group buy or go to the auction site for these steelbooks.
I also don't know how exclusive to HMV these exclusives are as I've seen one of them - 'Godzilla' - available recently at Zavvi. There may be others but I haven't checked further into it.
Now, however, there is xtra-vision where I believe you can pick up most of these HMV exclusive steelbooks although I don't know how the prices compare to prices instore.
Regarding Amazon: I don't remember which steelbook was their last genuine exclusive as clearly that bunch of 4 titles from the end of last October are now freely available at Zavvi and at xtra-vision and at almost half the price!!!
Anyway, I've almost abandoned Amazon completely because of their recent double-whammy of cancelling free shipping unless you have first GBP 10 then GBP 20 worth of stuff in your basket - a move it seems to me designed to 'persuade' the customer to register for Amazon Prime - now 90% of what I buy there are U.S. region free Blu-rays of films not yet released here in the U.K. from Amazon marketplace sellers.
In conclusion: THANK YOU ZAVVI FOR MAINTAINING FREE SHIPPING.
