Support NeoGAF

[jedimike]

It just boggles my mind sometimes... OK I know that games ship on Tuesdays, but why do game stores show coming soon posters with July 20th as the date for ESPN Football? What does that say to the consumer? It tells them fucking nothing.

I'm at Hollywood Video and in the movie section the sign says "Starsky and Hutch July 20th"... it doesn't fucking say 19th and guess what, I can actually rent or buy the movie on the 20th. Now I walk into GameCrazy and ask the clerk when I can pick-up my ESPN (this is Monday)... she says tomorrow (20th). I think OK, they must be getting their shipment in early. I walk into GameCrazy today and the same bitch says that it ships today and will be in on Wednesday. I said... but yesterday you said I could get it today and the sign says July 20th? Of course she apologizes and said pick it up tomorrow.

Why don't game stores just put fucking July 21st on the sign? This isn't a new problem and I'm sure clerks get very tired of explaining the situation every Tuesday.

 

[crawlingpeter]

i actually brought this up with my friend today... how come CDs ALWAYS make their tuesday release dates, but games never show up on time?

 

[BuddyC]

i actually brought this up with my friend today... how come CDs ALWAYS make their tuesday release dates, but games never show up on time?

alot of reasons, really.

The way CDs and DVDs work is that retailers actually get them the previous week. With the game market, however, there usually isn't a street date so retailers can sell them whenever they get them in stock. Some places get the games the day they ship, other time they don't. It depends on the store, location, and how major of a title it is (including presale numbers). The earliest stores could have had ESPN was today, the 20th. So that's why most places used that date.

Now, street dated titles are a different story. Games like Spider-Man 2, Enter the Matrix, Halo 2 - retailers will have those on the release date, because it's a street date, not a ship date. Why use street dates in the first place? Well, I'll let someone else handle that.

 

[AirBrian]

Music and movies have hard street dates. Most of the time they are shipped to the stores a week (or more) before the official date. As you are well aware, the music/movie companies are very strict about releasing the product ahead-of-time.

Games have a soft street date. Unless told by the manufacturer, stores can put the games out on the floor as soon as they get them. Like it's been said, they are more of shipping dates than street dates. All stores do not get the games at the same time, thus the fluctuation from store to store.

Also IIRC, stores get games via UPS or FedEX. Some of the bigger chains get them sent to distribution centers and then get sent to the stores via their normal means. That's why BB, CC, Wal-Mart, and TRU get the games two days after the release date whereas GameStop and EBGames get them one day after the release date. Now of course there are exceptions. Sometimes the manufacturer might ship late, or only ship to certain stores first, and so on.