| vivster said: At the end of the day it comes down to this: There are 2 reasons for a product to be delayed. Someone sucks at project management or someone sucks at producing the product. Take your pick. But just don't expect games to be better because of delays. |
I'll propose reason #3 -- Games are being moved out of certain dates due to competition and/or perceived lack of exposure. I think most games are delayed even when they could have been released at the scheduled time, and that the tweaks done in that extended period are minor.
Most games get bumped because the publisher thinks that competition will hurt the sales. It is the same with movies and their release dates. Once a strong competitor locks in the date, everybody else scatters...
Because many people will buy a game (go to the movies) based on box-office/sales charts, and also you get free advertisement with titles like this weeks "Wolfenstein takes #1 spot in the UK". This will certainly generate better future sales than if it had come in 2nd behind Watch Dogs with the exact same amount of sales (and profits to the publisher) ----- just to make clear, it's a reference to headlines and release windows, and I used that game as an example only.
