...earlier than expected!

Here look at the MS store page

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Metal-Gear-Solid-V-The-Phantom-Pain-for-Xbox-One/productID.282497300

Another indicator would be this

which is from the metalgearsolid subreddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/metalgearsolid/comments/2pzoyg/did_i_just_find_it_the_street_date_was_generic/

a February release date? no way.

We're talking about Kojima here, everything's possible.

I hope it's not February. A closer release date would be awesome, but February is already packed and I would like it if the games were more spaced out. April is pretty empty from what I remember.

Hasn't February been "emptied" now I thought only The Order and Evolve are still coming out in February.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_in_video_gaming

There's a decent amount of games coming. I personally would just prefer it to release in April.

No, anything pre May would kill me.

Feb seems really early to me. Like, I would have thought they would try more than two months of build-up before release.

Off-topic: But does anyone think it's kinda funny yet weird that internally MS refers to the XBO as the XB3?

kojima can just chance it when ever he wants

Can't wait