Answer from Amazon UK!!!

[Mookie]

"Thank you for contacting us at Amazon.co.uk with regards to "CIVILIZATION III". I have looked onto our website and the release date for this item, as you correctly stated, 28 December 2001. I have also looked onto "FIRAXIS" website and it states "Sid Meier's Civilization III has gone gold and will ship to retailers October 30th with games reaching store shelves soon after". Therefore, this means that stocks should arrive with the retailers but you will not be able to purchase this item until later. Please note that this date has not been provided."

What's your opinion about this? I don't know if this is god or bad news...

[Fidel]

Amazon UK is employing headless chickens.

[kittenOFchaos]

Amazon Uk are a bunch of tossers...cya in court

[MarkG]

Re: Answer from Amazon UK!!!

Originally posted by Mookie
Please note that this date has not been provided.

which date of all?

the only thing i know is what we have been told by Infogrames, that 17/11 is the pan-european release date

beyond that, i dont any retailers who have stock and dont sell it for 6 weeks.....

[Mookie]

I'm still very confused about this release date thing

[Deathwalker]

So after that, we still now nothing. Are we going to have to wait till it is released before we have a date form them?

[Grumbold]

I know it is illegal for them to sell the game before the "official" release date, even if they have stock ready in advance. I once managed to persuade a retailer to sell me a copy thursday evening and only charge my credit card on the friday morning but normally they won't even do that.

Alternatively, since Infogrammes don't ship direct from their warehouses to the retail outlets, stores with bad distribution may get 1,000 units delivered to their warehouse on the day of release but take another two weeks to deliver them to their shops.

[cyril25376]

Somebody coming too late will be punished by a quicker one .."

[Crouchback]

Re: Answer from Amazon UK!!!

Originally posted by Mookie
"Thank you for contacting us at Amazon.co.uk with regards to "CIVILIZATION III". I have looked onto our website and the release date for this item, as you correctly stated, 28 December 2001. I have also looked onto "FIRAXIS" website and it states "Sid Meier's Civilization III has gone gold and will ship to retailers October 30th with games reaching store shelves soon after". Therefore, this means that stocks should arrive with the retailers but you will not be able to purchase this item until later. Please note that this date has not been provided."

What's your opinion about this? I don't know if this is god or bad news...

So they're going to have thousands of copies sitting int their warehouse from 30th October, but unable to release them to consumers until Infogrames' tells them to? Man that sux and blows.

Guess it's time to go look for a more expensive copy that will actually be delivered.

David

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I once managed to persuade a retailer to sell me a copy thursday evening and only charge my credit card on the friday morning but normally they won't even do that.

As an auditor, that makes my life difficult. I once went to a stocktake and something similar to that had happened. It was a car dealership, and they had been "fudging" the sales dates for various reasons (tax, sales bonuses, licence reg plates etc) - The point being that the cars were not there at stock-take but no sales processed in respect of them either.

"Oh dear. We seem to have misplaced £100,000 worth of cars."

[Grumbold]

Overnight test drive?

[Darkknight]

AArrgh! I thought that the UK release was the same as US for once!! Those Dumm MFer's!! Don't they think we like the game and will buy it. Maybe they just care about America!

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Overnight test drive?

If it were claimed to be the case, I would request the details of all test drives around that time. I would then be required to phone the person in possession of the car at that time, and have them confirm that they were in fact in possession.

I'm just an investigator.

On the issue of universal release date, I think it is to do with Supplier/Distributor contracts, possibly equal opportunity law or something similar. i.e. All distributors are to have an equal opportunity at selling a new product.. Can't confirm that though.

[Earthling7]

If they want the game to be bought rather than downloaded and pirated, they have a funny way of showing it... if this all is as it seems.

[Chowlett]

INfogrames states that the pan-European release date is 17th november, but does that include the UK? To many, the UK is not a part of Europe per se. Plus we have Firaxis's statement that the release will be simultaneous in US/UK. I know they aren't the final word on this, but might infogrames have implicitly excluded UK from Europe, so the 30th October is still a valid release date? I hope so, but who knows?