It’s not even really supposed to be out yet. You go and look around at the various sites, Emergence Day — or the grand release date extravaganza for Epic’s Gears Of War for the Xbox 360 — is on the 12th. But the game is actually being shipped out to retailers today. Some enterprising retailers have it in stock today, having gone to extraordinary lengths to please their customers (like driving to the airport to pick up a shipment).
I’d love to report to you that I have it in my hands but I do not. My retailer, a den of such slavering, slack-jawed malcontents as there ever was, did not go the extra mile. They will not be delivering this much-anticipated game into my hands today. I will, like many others, be forced to bide my time watching people in my Friends List enjoying the damned game. I live in the city within which this game was made, where Epic has their studios, where CliffyB swills beer and flips people off while thinking up wholesome mechanics like the curb stomp and I can’t get the damned game today.
I shouldn’t be that bothered. Anticipation is a very peculiar phenomenon. I’ve been waiting for this title for a rather long time, what’s 24 hours? IT’S 24 GODDAMNED HOURS IS WHAT IT IS!
I certainly don’t intend to defend GameStop but a large part of the blame for the GOW debacle lies in Microsoft’s incapable hands. I know this because I work for a competing retailer who is just as frustrated as you.
Microsoft had some issue at the last minute which caused them to severely cut most initial GOW shipments. I don’t know the specifics of the issue behind Microsoft’s decision to pull games back but I do know it had an effect on every retailer hoping to get the game on the 7th or 8th. My company lost about 50% of our original order -this at the very last minute.
We are quite pissed off. We promised thousands of guests this game on the 7th and now only about 1/2 were able to pick them up. We don’t like being placed in a position where we look like assholes when, in reality, Microsoft is the source of the problem.