Whats the true release date?

[Silent Kajun]

Hi all. I'm awaiting Silent Hunter III anxiously, but it looks like I'll have to wait another day. Sites like Gamespot have the release date as today, the 15th, but the brick and mortar ebgames near me says that's only the ship date. What has been your experience in the past on release dates?

[Windows95]

Usually the release date is the day it gets shipped to stores and the following day it's actually in stores. So SH3 should start showing up in stores tomorrow.

[Silent Kajun]

So really it sounds the release date is the date it's released by distributors, not retailers.

[DiscoJason]

So really it sounds the release date is the date it's released by distributors, not retailers.

That is correct, sir!

Some rare stores might get a big PC title shipped same day. The specialty stores, being more console-centric now, aren't really doing that for PC games anymore, though.

As stated above, the rule is basically the release date is the ship date and you can get it in your stores the next day. The same is really true for console games as well, unless it is a Halo 2 or GTA or something, or it is a store which happens to be able to get same day shipping.

[Archangel]

There are very often one for US and one for Europe.

However many people that pre-order can get it earlier couse many shops ship the game when they get it in just before the official release.

I got Operation Flashpoint like 3 days before the world wide release.

Besides that then many shops also break the "deal" and sell it before release.

About SSIII, people are starting to get it it seems form the official forum and subsim.

I will wait until it drops slightly in price though

[Silent Kajun]

Thanks for all the replies. I got my copy of SH3 yesterday...Totally awesome by the way, highly recommeded. This is one of the few games that I haven't waited to buy used, and one of the fewer still that has lived up to the hype IMHO.