Some advice from someone who has had some experience consulting on supply chain issues – stores/retailers that make ETA commitments about a game that has not gone gold yet are full of bollocks. The designers THEMSELVES don’t know when the game is going to go gold, so how would the stores? They are just quoting a date in their purchasing systems, and they have to tell the masses something. I would say that when the game does go gold, it should ship a couple of days after that. Personally, I would rather wait and get a game that is as free of bugs as possible than go through major frustration playing a game that was rushed through the QA stage.
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