darkSpyro

Now that the Donkey Kong and Bowser dual packs are a thing, a lot of the hardcore collectors that went out and bought all the starter packs so they could get them have been annoyed that they didn't wait. Nothing had ever been said about the Nintendo characters being sold seperatly and it seemed as though the only way to get all of the figures would be to buy all of the starter packs.

This was without doubt done on purpose. There's no reason whatsoever that these packs couldn't have been released at launch and even if they couldn't for whatever reason, we were never even told that packs like these would be coming.
Activision knew that the hardcore collectors would spend a ridiculous amount of money on starter packs if they had to. They knew that most people assumed that the Nintendo characters wouldn't be sold seperatly.

Also, this retailer has listed the dark edition characters on their own.
http://www.awx.co.za/site/sear...xclude-search=1

If these really are coming, then literally every extra starter pack that was bought for the sake of getting the figures inside was a complete waste.

Well, at least those that bought the Starter Packs had them months earlier.
However I just hope TFB will be nice enough to code in the broken Nightfalls into Sky 6 so that everyone can use her. It would be pretty stupid if they didn't.