Amazon put UK PTW release back to Dec 13th

zulu9812 · December 3, 2002, 13:39

What's next? 20th? 27th? 2003? Never released?

CerberusIV · December 3, 2002, 16:16

Hmmmm!

I pre-ordered a UK version through Gameplay who quoted the same price and a release date of 29th November. It arrived in the post on 29th November.

Don't Amazon UK want to sell the game

or are they expecting a patched version

Mikel · December 3, 2002, 18:02

I second that. Purchased PtW in HMV on 2/12/02,

JimMac · December 3, 2002, 18:55

Quote:

Purchased PtW in HMV on 2/12/02,

Weird!- HMV.co.uk quote a release date of the 13th December.

Mikel · December 3, 2002, 22:08

Even weirder : I found it by accident on a 19.99 sale shelf, not in the chart or New Release section.

Lucilla · December 4, 2002, 05:21

Well, I cancelled my order at Amazon and bought it in a shop. Taking shipping costs into account, it was even cheaper.

If Amazon doesn't want to sell it....What can I do?

zulu9812 · December 4, 2002, 08:50

PC World doesn't even have PTW on it's pre-order release schedule, which is quite worrying...

statusperfect · December 4, 2002, 08:57

In sweden it's put back to january

Magnu · December 4, 2002, 09:21

I also found mine in shop , doesn't appear to be on sale online in the UK. Like Mikel I found it randomly placed in amongst other games , not in new release.

Not a very good marketing strategy :-)

The Pioneer · December 4, 2002, 09:50

I looked for it here in Germany but I didn't find it in a brick and mortar shop. Amazon.de is offering it on a 24 hour delivery availability

! Funny thing is that the price on Amazon went from 29.99 to 35.99 then to 32.99 and it finally settled at 29.99 Euros

! Very weird.

This is by no means a mistake from Firaxis though. The marketing and distribution (i.e. Infogrames and their int'l distributors) is at fault here. They must have some kind of problem with channeling the product into the markets

.

So long...

Lucilla · December 4, 2002, 10:50

I bought mine at Media Markt in Amsterdam, so it might be available at Media Markt in Germany, too.

alva · December 4, 2002, 12:51

It's availlable in Belgium too,
but €43 !!!

JimMac · December 4, 2002, 14:08

Thanks for the tips guys! I naïvely assumed that Amazon UK would have PTW in stock as soon as it was available in the shops here. WRONG!! I went round to HMV, and sure enough there it was, barely noticable on a shelf of other assorted non chart titles(for 19.99). So I’ll cancel my Amazon order tonight and buy it in HMV tomorrow. Why wait another 10-12 days to save £3?

Have to say that the marketing for this release in the UK is pretty poor, it appears that PTW was not so much released but escaped.

(Now I have to replace my PTW with Amazon with another item costing at least £10 in order to get my free postage, hmm ...wonder what I should get…)

sun_tzu_159 · December 4, 2002, 16:39

Woolworths in UK has it in some stores. It was no.3 seller 2 weeks ago, dropped to no.4.
I was told by the helpful sales assistant that it was on her delivery list for two weeks but none has arrived at my local store and no stocks could actually be located.

I can conclude only two possibilities.

1. Infogrames released some stocks to the store before the release date was put back and some stores did not take any notice of this and sold it anyway.

2. Infogrames asked nicely that all copies of the game be returned whence they came and some stores took no notice of this and sold it anyway.

I also checked with Game and they had it for release on Nov22, then Nov29, now Dec6 but still no stocks.

Has anyone seen the GOTY on sale anywhere?

It seems that indeed some units have escaped around EU countries.

Only one logical reason to do this delay and that is they are going to sell a patched version straight out of the box. Some of the original stock was released and recalled. It will be a real mess which version is sold from retailers if the packaging is not redone.

Regards
STZ

JimMac · December 4, 2002, 18:59

Yeah Sun-Tzu, I think your theories are probably fairly accurate.

If most of the big on-line UK sellers do not have it in stock and are quoting the same release date, and the main dedicated game retail outlets -Game/EB- appear to be operating on the same time-table it suggests to me that the 'official' release date is 13th December.

Of course, I am happy to find an odd copy of PTW lying under a bunch of assorted games reduced to £19.99, but it does make me wonder about Infogrames interesting marketing techniques.