An alert for garden-creepers and potential stalkers everywhere. The Modern Warfare ‘Prestige’ edition – the one with the night vision goggles – is being published in strictly limited numbers. Snooze and you’re going to lose. That sort of thing...

We suspect the dark hand of the marketing dept. at work here. Especially since Infinity Ward and publishers Activision will have had to buy the goggles in humongous quantities in order to bring the whole pack to market at a remotely affordable price (current rrp £120!). Unless they’ve committed to making a big loss on every pack sold, that is – and that seems unlikely in the very extreme. Nevertheless they’re playing up the whole exclusivity thing, we’ll believe it and duly fall over ourselves to pre-order like our lives depended on it. Which they probably do, thinking about it.

“We’ve already been asked by retailers to up the production numbers due to demand, which we immediately denied,” Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling tells IGN.com. “We decided from the beginning that we want this to be for the hardcore fans and early adopters. The fact that it is actually limited is one of the coolest parts, which is why we’ve individually numbered every copy.”

“It was important to us that this be a true collectors’ edition and as such, we do one run, and it’s finished. The Prestige Edition is NOT something you’re going to be seeing on the cheap 2 months after launch.”

No doubt that’ll be true too, although we wonder whether the same will hold for the Modern Warfare 2 ‘Hardened’ edition, which comes in a steel case and is set to retail for a penny under 70 squids. Meanwhile the bog-standard game with no fancy extras or metal packaging has a suggested £54.99 price tag. Shop around to find it a tenner cheaper and be thankful you found such a stonking barg.

Modern Warfare 2 is out for PC, 360 and PS3 on November 10th.