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Halo 2 Retail Date Broken in Midwest
Thanks to c0nrad, who alerted us to a Gamespot article stating that Halo 2's launch date has been broken by a Midwestern store. From the article: "Several reports on the Gaming Age forums--which included photos of the limited edition of the game--said that several individual Meijer stores, a self-described grocery and general merchandise retailer that operates in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky, were selling the game early. However, calls made by GameSpot to several Meijer outlets made it sound like the franchise was sticking to the deadline." The reader continues: "Despite that, Ebay auctions have already gone up, with one having already reached $265!"
Why would anyone pay $265 for Halo 2? 1. It's on the Internet if you want it now. 2. If you're that much of a Halo fanatic, you've got Halo 2 preordered. Which means you're garunteed a copy in 4 days at 1/5th of that price. Is there something I'm missing here?
The game has already gone gold. MS and Bungie will still get money from the sales. Some rubes on eBay will be out some more $$$ just for bragging rights. All that will happen is that some PR prick will feel as though their spectacular launch day has been violated.
But tomorrow, the sun will still rise and Halo 2 will remain just a game.
The bees, on the other hand... the bees will soon control the world.
-EvilMagnus
Yeah, there is something you're missing: the fact that most people are idiots. Remember when the PS2 came out, and was sold out everywhere? And it was selling for triple or quadruple what it was worth on eBay? And this was despite the fact that the PS2 didn't have a single decent launch game. Some people just have to have the latest thing now now NOW, even when it flies in the face of logic.
So yeah, I'm not surprised that people are paying ridiculous amounts just to have it a few days early. People can be really stupid sometimes.
--
These aren't the droids you're looking for.
Hope you all pre-ordered.
Why, because you're going to keep the extra copies under lock and key until 11/10 to "teach people a lesson" about preordering?
The EBGames in my local mall had "zero" copies of GTA San Andreas at 9:00 PM on release day if you hadn't pre-oredered, but dozens the next morning. Luckily Wal-Mart doesn't pull such stupid crap, and I was able to get one of their 100+ copies the day the game came out. You really expect me to believe that with how many copies they're hoping to sell of this game that they aren't shipping enough to retailers? Halo 2 won't be sold out. It's the games that *aren't* expected to sell well that you need to pre-order.
Are there 'release dates' for white goods?
Of course not, they are practically commodities. People only shop for them when they move into a house or the old one dies, and no-one cares about being the first to get the latest kenmore.
But video game and movie consumers really do want to get the game/movie as soon as they can. The producers encourage this, but the demand would exist even without their encouragement. They are not controlling demand by having a first day of sale - it is logically impossible not to have a first day that a product is available.
If they did do what you said and allowed stores to sell as soon as they got it, that would artificially limit supply on the first days, allowing lucky retailers to gouge people that were willing to buy it, and hurting the sales of unlucky stores whose shipment arrived a day latter.
Given there is demand for a popular game, and that there has to be a first time that it is available, the most fair thing to do - for the retailers and the customers - is to make it available for all the retailers to sell on the same day.