Delays, Delays, Delays

It's a constant in game releases: delays. There is news today of a number of games frustratingly being put-off until (in some cases) much later. Probably most shocking is news that Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is not going to be available for the PS3 launch. The title won't be available on Sony's console until Q1 2007. Somewhat less surprisingly, Half-Life 2 Episode 2 is going to be available in the summer, not in the spring. There's a raft of Xbox titles that have been pushed out to Summer as well. Forza 2, Shadowrun, and Too Human will not be available until June of 2007. Finally, the possibility for more frustrations for the often-frustrated European gamers. Via commentary on Gamasutra, a post on the Three Speech blog (a Sony organ) has Phil Harrison dodging the March launch for the PS3 in Europe. From Three Speech: "Given that all of our previous statements about launching in Europe simultaneously with the US and Japan turned out not to be the case, I would not like to make any definitive statements on that. It's not my job to comment on hardware supply issues other than to say some very smart people are working very hard to catch up. In fact, the ramp up is already starting to happen in supply and output, just obviously too late for us to have launched in Europe at the same times as the US."

Comments

Re:Delayed, you say?

[__aaclcg7560]

I worked six years in the video game industry for Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company) and was a lead tester for ten titles over a three year period. The funny thing is that marketing sets a date without asking anyone, top management waves a fat bonus in front of the producer if the project is done a month earlier than the marketing date, and everyone gets mad when I add two months to the marketing date. My dates are almost always perfect (plus/minus two weeks). Does QA get the fat bonus that the producer lost? Oh, hell no.