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!"

Comments

$265?

[BlueCodeWarrior]

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?

Re:$265?

[retrev]

Collectors might want this "special" copy. There are people with too much money and too little sense.

Re:$265?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your missing 2 things
1. The copy that is available on the internet cannot play online.
2. People are morons.

Hope that helps

Re:$265?

[HiredMan]

Not to mention that XBox live will probably ban you and send people to your house and shave your dog for trying to play a game on-line that hasn't been released yet.

And you'd deserve it for logging into a Microsoft server running a Microsoft program that isn't (supposed to be) available yet to advertise that you have it.
w00+! 1m l33+!

That's like clicking "Yes - Check to see if my software is legal" on the M$ site when you're running a pirated copy.

=tkk

Um, who cares?

[EvilMagnus]

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.

Ebay?

[sdo1]

Ebay auctions have already gone up, with one having already reached $265!

Repeat after me. "It's just a game".

Sheesh

-S

Halo Outlaws

[slumpy]

At the EBgames I work at we have around 10 or so big boxes with Halo 2 and the strategy guides.....so it's no surprise people are selling it early. It's tempting as hell to take one home.

Each of the shrink-wrapped game cases has a sticker....under the shrink-wrap, that says "DO NOT SELL UNTIL 11/9/04." I've never seen a game this hyped or this heavily protected. Hope you all pre-ordered.

Re:Halo Outlaws

[period3]

Each of the shrink-wrapped game cases has a sticker....under the shrink-wrap, that says "DO NOT SELL UNTIL 11/9/04." I've never seen a game this hyped or this heavily protected.

Yeah, those stickers are deadly guardians. I tried peeling one off once, and I cut myself pretty bad. Almost bled to death.

Why discourage sales?

[AtariAmarok]

Why not let stores sell it when they have it? It kind of makes software industry whines about piracy losses ring hollow when the product is sitting there in the stores and the software company is prohibiting stores from selling it. There is also the message of "want to buy it? Forget about it: we're sitting on the boxes for now. You'll have to scan Kazaa for a cracked copy."

Re:Actually....

[HiredMan]

The interesting question is not "Why would Micorsoft punish the user?".

The answers to that are:
A: Because they can
B: It is their core competency
C: Bill was picked on as a kid
D: Developers! Developers! Developers!
E: All of the above

Instead the interesting question is "Why does the user choose to be punished by Microsoft?"

=tkk

PS For everyone that missed it I was posting at least _a little_ tongue in cheek. Except the part about the dog - that really happened to a friend of a friend of mine. Really. Completely shaved.