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Originally Posted by gino
Why is Blockbuster always late with game releases? I went there today to rent FEAR 2, which came out on Tuesday. They are like "oh, it doesnt come out till the 13th". And that's not the first time it happened, it was the same when I pre-ordered Socom from them. They've been trying to get into the selling video games business for quite a while, so one is to assume they would be on point with game releases, I guess not. =l
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I'm in the business and I help run a number of Blockbuster stores. In fact I buy the games for a lot of Blockbuster stores (franchise stores, not corporate).
The reason why you have a delay is ALL on the developers, period. What people fail to understand is when a release date is given for a game for the most part that is not a STREET DATE! They have told me it's an "availability date", which means a select group of retailers are going to get it on that date. The only way to get it on the date is to have your own trucks backed up at EA's, LA's, Sony's, or whom ever warehouse and ship it directly to your stores. If you for instance are like Blockbuster, you have to get it shipped to your warehouse and then it's distributed from there.
In essence it's a way to give some retailers a day or two above other people. One thing I've learned for the past 8 years being the game buyer is everyone (except customers) hates rentailers. We've begged and pleaded for official street dates much like movie stuidos. It seems they think it's "too hard and we will lose money in the process if we have street dates". Now have they ever explained how they are giong to lose money....no.
by the way, there are some games that are street dated. Games like halo 3 or Gears 2, those were official street dates. GAmes coming up that have official street dates, Halo Wars, Metallica GH, and Resident Evil 5. Notice something about those....they are heavy hitters. That's pretty much the story every month. Believe me Blockbuster wants to have the game the same day as everyone else....the problem is the game vendors don't really care what everyone wants.