The reported Limited Edition version of Call of Duty: Black Ops has been confirmed to be a real product thanks to word from Activision, and is indeed due for release on June 28th across North America at “all retailers.”

This special edition of Black Ops, which will retail for $59.99, will come standard with a token for the game’s very first set of downloadable content, the First Strike map pack, giving players access to five all new multiplayer maps.

But why doesn’t Activision throw in the second set of DLC, too, or wait until the third map pack is out to include that set as well?

The Limited Edition CoD: Black Ops is being offered on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and the First Strike DLC has been out for some months now. The second map pack, Escalation, was more recently launched on Xbox 360 with a delayed release on PS3 and PC due to the exclusivity deal Microsoft has with Activision with regards to Call of Duty map packs.

The third map pack for Black Ops, Annihilation, is due for release for Xbox 360 owners on June 28th – the same day that the Limited Edition version of the game is out.

It begs the question then: Why doesn’t Activision wait until all three of the map packs have been released for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 before offering something worthy of ‘Limited Edition’ status?

Naturally, Activision would like maximise revenue from all three of the map packs before offering them together in a bundle, which means keeping the DLC available in the online market for as long as possible, but I feel as though the publisher could have tried to offer a more substantial ‘Limited Edition’ version of the game with more DLC included at a regular retail price.

With its current tactic, we could expect Activision to release at least one more Limited Edition of Black Ops with the other two map packs included, which smacks of moneygrubbing to me.

Source: Joystiq