Comments on: Fallout 3 Street Date Today, Broken By Slim Margin

By: CloneTrooper

CloneTrooper — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 05:17:46 +0000

I got a call from my EB yesterday lunchtime telling me they could sell it because someone had broken street date…

This year has really been one big balls up for release dates. Its getting to the point where you’re almost guaranteed to find someone selling it early. Still, I like to pre-order my stuff and show a bit of store loyalty…that and I got crap all to choose from here in the country…

By: Phill

Phill — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 05:16:02 +0000

Who thinks Gears 2 date will be broken ??

By: bazuden

bazuden — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:41:10 +0000

I'm all for reporting broken street dates.

We have appalling waits for some games in Oz, e.g. Smash, Mario Galaxy, Tekken 6 on console (September 2009 WTF??), so its nice to know some of us can get a few games early for once!

By: theTRON

theTRON — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:10:19 +0000

I managed to get my copy of Fallout on Wednesday from a little laptop shop in Melbourne CBD – they had them sitting in the window with a little ‘On sale now!’ sign and everything!

By: VanillaSniper

VanillaSniper — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:42:28 +0000

A comment mentioned in here that its the gamers that are hit the hardest by street dates being broken, however when you consider that the majority of sales for a new title are done in the first week of release, you can easily see the advantage of breaking the street date.
Consider that a big chain has a centralized warehousing system whereby they get the games a week before release in order to distribute to their stores. Now consider a smaller store which only receives the game 24 hours before release, breaking the street date means a massive competitive advantage.

On another note, standard release days are Tuesday and Thursday in Australia, by releasing a game such as fallout 3 on a Friday the publishers are breeding confusion into the mix.

By: AJ

AJ — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:36:06 +0000

I got mine yesterday at JB's.

As for reporting yes! I want to know of every slip and shady opportunity to get my beloved holdiay releases early!

By: dartmerc

dartmerc — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:30:08 +0000

Cam, if your interested in walking into a store and picking up a copy no trouble - wait until it's 'released'.
As for all the calling around and extra work, thats part of the fun. Finding who has early stock and convincing them to sell it to you is a game in itself.. sometimes not an easy one, but if you've got the balls to do it, and can be persuasive and convincing you'll be successful more often than you may think.

Personally, I think anything over 24 hours, or anything that includes a friday or weekend should be reported on.

http://ihavetheprincess.wordpress.com

By: Cam

Cam — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:17:09 +0000

It actually annoys me when street dates get borken. Becuase then you have to ring around finding out who is selling it and who isn't. It much easier if you know for sure it will be in store on this date and you can just go there andm buy it.

I think Kotaku should be reporting every store that breaks street dates. for 2 reasons, 1 we can actually see who is selling it without having to make a dozen phone calls, and 2 so if the publishers don't want the street dates broken they can actually take action against the retailers.

By: EzyLee

EzyLee — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:46:16 +0000

I can see the advantage in alerting us on street date breaks, but more recently this led me to miss out on LittleBigPlanet as Kotaku reported it had been released in a certain store where I get my games from. I went there on the way home and they told me they had it on shelves, but got a phone call telling them to take it down and not to sell any.

VERY frustrating for me not being able to get my hands on a copy... but I am patient.

By: cowboy

cowboy — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:25:16 +0000

Its a tough call. On one hand, we the gamers benefit from early releases, getting to play much-waited-for games a few days early.

So, yay early releases are a good thing, and we shouldn't be getting stores in trouble for releasing early.

On the OTHER hand, its nearly always the big chains (eg JB, K-mart) doing this, and it would be to the detriment of the smaller specialist game stores who aren't big enough to risk getting on the wrong side of the Sony's and the Microsoft's. So they abide by the rules, and end up losing sales.

I'm all for the 'little guy' so I say narc on the early releasers.

I'm lucky enough to work in the CBD within 5 minutes walk of a multitude of game stores though, so whenever a game I'm anticipating is due out I tend to try and step out at lunchtime everyday in the leadup to lookout for them anyway.