It’s always the way: highly anticipated game ships into retail ahead of its intended release date, highly anticipated game ends up being sold to customers ahead of its intended release date.
This time it’s the turn of Batman: Arkham Asylum, the well-reviewed Eidos brawling adventure. Having just grappled the gargoyle of shops around the country this week, at least one retailer has started selling copies one week before its September 3 release date.
That retailer is Gametraders’ Carillon WA store, pictured here flogging the PS3 version for 20 bucks under RRP. Early and cheap? Impressive.
Anyone secured a copy elsewhere today?
[Thanks raze35!]
Wayne
August 27, 2009 at 4:09 PM
If you look closely the game has an australian OFLC M sticker placed over another country’s rating, meaning this is an imported version.
No street date broken.
Report PermalinkSammyC
August 27, 2009 at 4:25 PM
shhh
Report Permalinkyou’ll spoil this for the rest of us :)
Cameron
August 27, 2009 at 5:03 PM
Yes, the OFLC (or Classification Board, or whatever) sticker is wrong. They normally have the “Recommended for a mature audience” and the reason it’s got the rating it does as well. No decent publisher would release such a big title with the incorrect sticker.
Report PermalinkDavid M
August 27, 2009 at 5:23 PM
Not necessarily an imported version. Don’t PAL regions often share the same cover and disc print?
Report PermalinkDavid M
August 27, 2009 at 5:25 PM
Though they definitely would normally have consumer advice on there wouldn’t they? So it possibly is.
Report PermalinkBig Poppa
August 27, 2009 at 9:26 PM
Not so Wayno. All Eidos games in Aus are like this. They do not manufacture Aus specific games , just relabel. The street has been broken.
Report PermalinkWayne
August 27, 2009 at 4:09 PM
but still good for us to go and buy ;)
Report PermalinkTakuie
August 27, 2009 at 4:22 PM
HOLY BATARANG!!
Carousel has it too and the LTD ed, they are HUGE! Perhaps I missed info about it but I didn’t expect the thing to be that big!!
ps. LTD for $139
Report PermalinkDeadlydorito
August 27, 2009 at 4:21 PM
Hey aussies, remember to print this image and show it to people at stores so you get hte game cheaper for reals !
Report Permalinkqwerty
August 27, 2009 at 4:48 PM
Im going to go to perth on friday to pick up a copy if im lucky.
Report PermalinkJames
August 27, 2009 at 5:05 PM
Don’t forget that if you buy the US version, you may have issues with DLC in the future – any free stuff should be fine, but you’d have to create a US account (if you don’t already have one) and download from the US store.
Report PermalinkCheaper at CDWow
August 27, 2009 at 5:11 PM
@David Wildgoose: hey mate, it’s actually $30 off RRP. The RRP is $119 (Crazy >.<)
Anyway, for those who wants cheaper price, as long as you can wait till this friday, Cdwow has Batman for $82… Not to mention free shipping too!
Report PermalinkMax
August 27, 2009 at 5:59 PM
I Tried at jb today but they poo pooed me
Report PermalinkJohnno
August 27, 2009 at 7:54 PM
Hey man does anyone know how to find out if a game has been released early eg batman tks
Report PermalinkAndrew Barnes
August 28, 2009 at 2:34 AM
not to be beating in the bush here, but can’t that company now be sued for selling another regions copy and pretending it to be our own? if that is ntsc i would be pissed.
Report PermalinkAyrton Coll
August 28, 2009 at 8:08 AM
it’s on steam for $49
Report PermalinkNick Durbridge
August 28, 2009 at 10:17 AM
Dungeon Crawl in Melbourne have just confirmed it via email…
Report PermalinkDavid M
August 28, 2009 at 10:39 AM
Anyone know of anywhere in Brisbane that has broken and and is selling below RRP?
Report PermalinkThePhantom
August 28, 2009 at 12:17 PM
@ Andrew Barnes.
There is no legal case. Gametraders don’t enter in to any sort of agreement with the local distributors which is how street dates are enforced. There is no law against it, it’s a contract entered into voluntarily. Since they import most of their stock, they don’t care about what the local distributors think. They did the same thing with the 360 version of Ghostbusters.
Report PermalinkDngnRdr
August 28, 2009 at 12:52 PM
Given that in the US the street date (25/8) was broken by about a week (and there were torrents around 21/8) and orders from o/s online stores are already reaching Australian buyers it’s kinda insane to continue to hold to 3/9 if you’ve got the game in stock.
Report PermalinkGidge
August 28, 2009 at 1:34 PM
JB Hi-Fi Doncaster claim if the street date is broken they can only sell it if it’s a nearby store. That and they claimed none of their stores have stock anyway.
Sounds suspiciously like they were blowing me off
Report PermalinkTonez
August 28, 2009 at 2:30 PM
JB blow their customers off? I’ll be visting their shortly. Sounds like great customer service.
Report PermalinkGidge
August 28, 2009 at 2:48 PM
It’ll cost them. I’d be surprised if everyone isn’t shipping them now.
Report PermalinkMario maniac
August 28, 2009 at 7:33 PM
Um, no, they’re doing the right thing there. I can vouch for their claim that no JB store in Australia has received their stock yet — we usually don’t receive the games until a day or two before the release, if not ON the day of release. The store I work at in SA has received the comics and pre-order codes already, but absolutely no store has gotten any copies of the game or any t-shirts in.
That, and Head Office has told us strictly not to break release date unless they tell us otherwise. IF you can prove that a store has broken the street release, you’re still likely to be turned down; we have to inform Head Office about the broken release before we can sell it to you.
Sorry, but that’s how it is.
Report PermalinkDngnRdr
August 28, 2009 at 3:32 PM
I find it ridiculous that the people being penalised and being forced to wait for the game due to some arbitrary street date that’s effectively useless, are those who are purchasing legally from local retailers… seems to me those are the people the retailers should be grateful for.
Report PermalinkDavid M
August 28, 2009 at 4:03 PM
I completely agree. What I don’t understand is, why the arbitrary week late release in Australia? EU seems to have gotten it on the 28th, so why must we wait? There doesn’t seem to be any big name releases that it was up against, I’m sure it would have squashed the competition. What gives?
Report PermalinkSweating Bullets
August 28, 2009 at 5:58 PM
I am just thankful that it’s only a week between the US release and the AU release dates. Remember when Metroid Prime was a few months between US and AU?!?!
Report Permalinksceptic
August 28, 2009 at 6:34 PM
just got home.went to an eb games in cairns at about 5ish.no-one in store so i peeked into the back room{door was slightly ajar} and the two staff were playing it!i demanded a copy and the manager poof said in a monotone,’if you wish to purchase a copy of batman arkham asylum,please return on the 3rd of september’
Report Permalinkthere was a box on the table with at least 100 copies for 360,ps3 and even the pc version which isnt out for some time!i had a bit of a sook,then left…
DngnRdr
August 29, 2009 at 12:08 PM
But US street date was broken by almost a week – 19 or 20th I think the first went on sale and other stores followed suit pretty quickly. 21st there was already a torrent so people illegally downloading could have had the game over a week and a half before some Au stores are willing to sell stock they have already. And as is evident import stores are already selling the game nearly a week before those local stores will be.
Don’t get me wrong, if they don’t have the stock then the fault is with the distributor who should have responded but when they have stock – why continue to hold out, it’s pointless and will wind up losing customers. I’m tempted to cancel my pre-orders for other games at my local EB and order from an online store I know will ship the moment they have the stock.
Report PermalinkTonara
August 28, 2009 at 6:19 PM
We don’t even have it in from delivery stock yet at Game lol, i’d imagine other retailers might not as well. Don’t blame us blame the distributors please, we won’t get it til next week.
Report PermalinkChris Rickard
August 29, 2009 at 2:30 AM
If your in Melbourne head to dungeon crawl in the city, got mine today works fine plays the joker content i got from psn au, it is a R2 copy but yeah sweet game
http://www.dungeoncrawl.com.au/
Report Permalinkzinfe
September 1, 2009 at 2:46 PM
Gametraders and Dungeon Crawl are selling imports, not official distributed copies. No precedent/ and or street date has been broken. To do so would incur a $40,000 fine. It’s stupid, I know, but there’s nothing that can be done about it. Which is a shame, because as a manager of a small games store, I have 50 copies ready to be sold as of this moment. If that doesn’t sound painful, this will … I’m about to play my copy now!
Enjoy the next two days waiting :)
Report PermalinkSweating Bullets
September 2, 2009 at 1:27 PM
ffs.
JB called and said they would sell me the Collector’s today. Instead of rushing out to buy it – I opted to goto the gym.
By the time I came back they had called me and said that it will be available tomorrow.
D’oh.
Life lesson to all the kids out there: Games > Gym
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