albionus on 15 October 2007
Well I wouldn't be surprised if some of those games get moved back 3 weeks given the Smash Bros. delay. To be fair to 3rd parties there are only 4 or so great sales weeks before Christmas and the biggest will be the weeks before and after Thanksgiving. With Nintendo occupying both of those weeks 3rd parties didn't have many options. There are 80 or so 3rd party games coming in Nov/Dec the 3rd parties couldn't very well crowd them into the 2 or 3 not as good weeks.
This makes me wonder if the Smash Bros. delay wasn't entirely necessary but just a situation that happened to benefit Nintendo enough indirectly for it to help out 3rd parties directly.
