Speaking of Just Around the Corner....

Hey, has anyone else noticed that game companies are now being smarter about the timetable for releasing new games?

Wait....what? You haven't heard that?

Noooooo, of course you haven't. All you have heard is that a bunch of BIG GAMES have been pushed to 2010.

With that being said, the first 6 months of 2010 will be the most important 1st half of the year in gaming. Period. End of story.

Why? Well, it comes down to this. Many game publishers believe, for what reason I do not know, that you have to put out all your HUGE games in time for Christmas. This inevitably leads to madness because between October 1 and the Black Friday, there are literally hundreds of new titles hitting your local Gamestop. (Why Black Friday, very rarely are games released in December, with some few exceptions: the newest Prince of Persia, Rise of the Argonauts last year, and previously NFL Street 2 which was due out XMAS EVE! and inevitably missed that date because of snowstorms.)

Having work in the gaming retail industry, I can tell you, honestly, that it doesn't matter when a game releases. If a game is good, has enough hype behind it and knows the audience its going after, it can release in any month. Here are a few examples:

• Grant Theft Auto IV - April 2008
• UFC: Unleashed - May 2009
• Red Faction: Guerilla - June 2009
• Red Dead Revolver - May 2004
• Ghost Recon - Advanced Warfighter - March 2006
• Fight Night Round 3 - February 2006
• God of War 1 and 2 - March releases

All of these games have sold over a million copies, PROVING that you do not need to launch in the 4th quarter to have a successful game. Granted, you can argue that for some of those games, it didn't matter when they launched because people wanted it, which is exactly what I am arguing here.

So why is the 1st half of next year important? Well, these games were all scheduled for a 2009 releases but have been pushed back:

• Bioshock 2
• Splinter Cell: Conviction
• Red Steel 2
• Dark Void
• Bayonetta
• MAG

But we still have a HUGE list of games that are scheduled for a Holiday time release:

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Dragon Age
• Assassin's Creed 2
• Borderlands
• Uncharted 2
• Brutal Legend
• Halo 3: ODST

It's already crowded enough, and I'm glad they've thinned it out but I want them to say that it was because they thought they could sell more if they gave it just a little more development time and not say that they didn't want it to hit during an already crowded time (which is a crap reason). Do you ever see movies come out all at the exact same time? No, because then nobody would see them. They spread them out and their are a few dull months (Jan/Feb), but for the most part you can have a hit anytime of the year. I wish the game companies would take note of that, especially if you aren't a major publisher.

As long as Modern Warfare 2 doesn't get pushed, I'm ok.