So what happened to games releasing on a friday?

GamesDontSuck

GamesDontSuck

Member
Random thought entered my brain as its a Friday. But I remember alot of games being released on Fridays always. At least here in Europe.

I have fond memories of going down to my local games store (GAME for you UK and Ireland folk) at the likes of 9am on a Friday to buy Metal Gear Solid 2 and later Vice City. Store would just be open and I would be getting my copy as early as possible.

I am now half tempted to get Death Stranding 2 and Mgs delta on release - which both release on a Thursday.

I know non-friday releases are not exactly a new thing, but when did they change? Seemed to slowly take over. I can't seem to remember exactly when.

Also also, you Americans have been getting Tueaday releases for much longer than us Europeans right?
 
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Checking back on a bunch of past releases. MGS 2 released Tuesday Nov 13th 2001. Checking through other releases like Halo and Gears of War series. I guess we mainly get Tuesday releases.
 
Luc2010 said:
Here in the states, it was Tuesdays. I do recall some games releasing on Friday.
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Connificent said:
They now release games on Tuesdays hoping you'll buy the early access version.
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Luc2010 said:
Checking back on a bunch of past releases. MGS 2 released Tuesday Nov 13th 2001. Checking through other releases like Halo and Gears of War series. I guess we mainly get Tuesday releases.
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Valve doesn't work during weekends, if a game is released on Friday and there's any issue, the dev is shit out of luck.
 
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Some higher profile games release earlier than Friday because often the weekly charts are collated after the weekend, and publishers want the best chance to sell as many copies as possible and potentially claim a number 1 spot.
 
It kinda makes sense. The games are usually released in the afternoon or evening. If this was Friday and there's a big fuckup with the release you might not have enough time to fix things before the weekend.

Plus retail games will have a better chance of being delivered on Friday.
 
I'd imagine there were too many complaints regarding ordering games online.

I effectively stopped preordering physical games on Amazon because they released on a Friday, but any teeny tiny hiccup in delivery delayed the shipment all the way until Monday because of the weekend. Same happened to me via bestbuy and GameStop. Maybe that had something to do with it?
 
I always remember Tuesdays being the release date.

I miss the days when all games for a given week were released on the same day, so you could go into the store and buy all of your new releases the same day.
 
They sell Day 1 as "early access" as an added fuck you to consumers. Delay a week so we can charge for it! Call it early access so people don't realize GamePass doesn't have Day 1 on MS games anymore.
 
Tuesdays in the states and Fridays for Nintendo games if i recall.
Always felt later in the week was best naturally- glad to see it skew more that way in recent years. Especially as a kid- Tuesdays with school was obviously a challenge. I feel like most games skew Thursdays now.
 
It was Tuesday and then some Fridays. That seemed to change.
We get less and less Tuesday releases and now it seems a lot of Thursday releases.

Looking back on the new games I bought:

Thursday:
Raidou
Guardians of Azuma
Expedition 33-
Suikoden 1 &2 remasterd
SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered
Star Overdrive

Tuesday:
Oblivion remastered
Xenoblade Chronicles X
KCD2
Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana
Civ 7 (wish i didn't get)

Wednesday:
Fantasy Life (but this was a digital only title so there is that, but weird it was on a Wed.)

Friday:
Tales of Graces F - Friday
Lunar Remastered Collection

Games I didn't get yet:
Doom Dark ages - Thursday
Monster Hunter Wilds - Friday
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD - Tuesday

You can clearly see a trend. Thursday is the main day now. Tuesday is 2nd an Friday is less common and Wednesday happens too but is very odd.
 
Nintendo was usually Fridays.

All others were traditionally Tuesdays, which when new CD's used to be released. Trucks usually came on Mondays or Tuesday morning.

Now, early access is usually Thurs/Friday with regular release on Tuesday.
 
Evil Calvin said:
Nintendo was usually Fridays.

All others were traditionally Tuesdays, which when new CD's used to be released. Trucks usually came on Mondays or Tuesday morning.

Now, early access is usually Thurs/Friday with regular release on Tuesday.
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Yep, Nintendo did the Fridays

Music for some reason did Tuesday

Movies are Friday

Now all but Movies are Tuesday, but the early access corpo greed kinda makes them Friday again

Weird
 
GamesDontSuck said:
Also also, you Americans have been getting Tueaday releases for much longer than us Europeans right?
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Yeah. That doesn't hold much sway any more but during the height of the CD/DVD craze (mid 90's to 2007 ish) we always had "New Release Tuesdays". This ran across most major retailers with Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Sam Goody, Music Land, etc. all having large release days and weekly ads centered on those days each week. At that time games were not driving the entertainment industry (before smart phones and apps entered the picture) like they are today.
 
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Back in the day games released on Tuesdays as it was beneficial for both the retailer and publisher.

If a game did well, the retailer had time to order more stock before a weekend rush. Where as if the game sold out on Friday, you might not get a new shipment until Monday.

I don't exactly know when sales data is tracked, be it Sunday-Saturday or Monday-Sunday, but games that sold on Friday were being topped in the charts by games sold earlier in the week.

Being the top game sold in it's release week is good PR. So releasing a game as close to when that data is tracked is smart.
 
In the States: Back in the SNES days it was Fridays—I think. "Mortal Monday" was a differentiator, but I think it switched to Tuesdays to be in line with movies, music, and other media. (I could TOTALLY be misremembering, re: Fridays).
Nintendo still does release things on Thursdays/Fridays, I think.
 
There's no real conspiratory reason for it. It was Tuesday in North America because Sega made a huge deal about Tuesday release when Sonic 2 came out. Then it just stayed that way until publishers didn't have to anymore.

Part of the reason it's changing for you is because you don't really see games released on wildly different days across regions anymore- you still see it for a few Japanese games. So when all regions are able to release at the same time, it makes sense to follow the region with the largest consumer(not counting China).

Miyazaki's Slave said:
Yeah. That doesn't hold much sway any more but during the height of the CD/DVD craze we always had "New Release Tuesdays". This ran across most major retailers with Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Sam Goody, Music Land, etc. all having large release days and weekly ads centered on those days each week.
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But it all changed when the fire nation attacked Beyonce released her surprise album on a Friday in 2013. Similar to the point I made above, there was an industry wide effort to have global releases. Added more hype, gave 1 less reason for piracy, and got a lot more listen over a weekend.
 
Early Access (aka getting customers to pay for beta testing your game) has ruined the notion of release date.
 
Thursdays was always the traditional date for video game releases in Japan, which included the likes of SIE and Konami. SIE, in particular, shifted to global releases on Friday since Death Stranding in November 8, 2019, until Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered in October 31, 2024 when they shifted once again to Thursday releases, now on a global scale as well. There are exceptions, though; MLB The Show (completely aimed at the US market) still releases on Tuesdays, while Lost Soul Aside had two Friday release dates in a row.
 
Yeah it was always Fridays in EU and Tuesday elsewhere. I think as games became so popular it became the norm to release them simultaneously.

I remember Call of Duty being a big factor as it ended up having big social events / launch parties with celebrities and whatnot. Games then kinda released on par with America, with some rare exceptions (some even had months worth of delays, looking at you Silent Hill Homecoming)
 
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