Harry Potter Definitive Collection - This is a Joke, Right?

If you bought the blu-ray edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 last year, you may recall seeing this trailer comfirming that the long-rumored "Definitive Collection" box set of all 8 Harry Potter movies was indeed headed for release in 2012:

Cool, right?  Not so fast...

Some details on the set have emerged, via Collider, and let's just say that if you really want this set, you better start saving now.  It's $500.  That is not a typo.  Amazon has it discounted on pre-order right now...but even there it's $350.  Whoa.

Granted, it is 8 movies, and it's a 31-disc set that will arrive in some truly wild packaging:

But let's take a closer look at those 31 discs.  According the specs, 18 of these discs are "movie discs", and this set is going to include the blu-ray and DVD versions of all 8 movies.  That's 16 discs right there.  It's also going to include the 3D versions of Deathly Hallows 1 & 2.  That's two more discs, bringing us up to 18.

So basically, if you were planning to buy this set so you could finally replace your DVD versions of the earlier films, guess what?  You're buying the DVDs again too.  And if you don't have a 3D TV, there's two more discs you can use as coasters.

I'm not going to harp too much on the reported 5 hours of extra features, since the details of what those are haven't been revealed yet - but that does seem relatively light on features, since the specs say that the other 13 discs will be the "special feature" discs. 

And all for the bargain basement price of $350.  That's crazy.  Obviously, any sort of 'ultimate' box set for a series this big was going to be expensive...but this is pretty extreme, especially when a lot of is going for a whole bunch of discs most of us already have or can't use.  Why not just have separate ultimate sets for blu-ray and DVD instead? 

Oh well.  Hopefully more details of the set will emerge soon that try to justify why on earth they thought pricing this thing into the stratosphere was a good idea.