Elder Scrolls IV Delayed

Gamespot reports that the much anticipated (by me, at least) Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is delayed until 2006. From the article: "In a conference call with analysts today, Take-Two Interactive announced that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is being delayed until the second quarter of its next fiscal year, which runs from February to April 2006. While this is still technically within Microsoft's 14-week "launch window" for the Xbox 360, it means that the game will not be on sale when the console arrives in stores on November 22."

Comments

Corporate rumors

[Dachannien]

One rumor on the official message board (not linked because it's already about to collapse under increased usage) is that TTWO is postponing Oblivion so they'll have a game release during 1Q 2006 to make the books look better. They already warned on earnings for the rest of 2005 and 2006, and several of their other titles have been delayed as well, so any manipulation of release dates to even out revenues quarter-by-quarter is probably on the table. It's interesting that this news arrives from TTWO during a conference call and not from the developer, Bethesda Softworks.

Some are suggesting that Bethesda will try to drop TTWO as publisher (they did just fine by themselves with Morrowind) because the game is pretty much ready for release.

However, these are just rumors. The last word from Bethesda was apparently October 13, when Peter Hines, a Bethesda marketing VP, said that Oblivion would be ready for the holidays.

Does anyone have more insight into whether these rumors might be true?

Call my Broker

[Puhase]

If you own stock in Take Two, its sell-time folks. 4th quarter profit #'s are what drive the prices, no matter the reasonable decisions that cause those numbers to drop. They may have a better than expected 2nd quarter, but they are going to take it in the deuce for 4th and 1st quarter. So yea, bad news for them, and us =p

No problem with it being delayed...

[Sathias]

I have no problem with it being delayed, they want the game to be up to the standard they are happy with and good on them for not releasing a buggy title (this time)

I do have a problem with the way they have handled their PR. Any thread talking about the release date gets locked on their forums, and they continually point to their FAQ which has about 12 questions in it, is hardly updated, and only lists the release date as "Holidays 2005", with an explanation that unless it is posted on the Bethesda site it isn't official.

Now their publishing partner has blown the lid off it and they have stopped locking the threads, seeming to be a de-facto admission that maybe this information that isn't on their site is correct. However since then the silence has been deafening, several Bethesda employees have been lurking the boards without saying a word, and just letting the endless speculation continue with no official word.

Not smart PR IMO.