CliffyB: Gears of War could hit stores before Nov 12
by Ross Miller 
{ Aug 8th 2006 at 2:55PM }
"They'll be able to sell it the minute they get it so some of those stores will have the game well before the 12th," he said.
Microsoft predicts that all stores will have the game in stock by November 12 -- hence, Emergence Day is the universal date for when Microsoft can advertise the title to all gamers -- hardcore or otherwise. Does this marginalize the importance of Emergence Day even more? Probably, but the marketing and PR hype will become null and void as soon as the game ships. And we wouldn't mind playing the game a few days early ...
CliffyB implied that much of the viral campaign leading up to Nov. 12 announcement was Mark Rein's idea. "we had no prior knowledge of the MFenix stuff so it seemed like a good idea at the time," he said. CliffyB defended its importance however, believing that the release date is "an absolutely huge announcement" for Epic, who rarely commits to release dates.
The variety of weapons, the yet-to-be revealed vehicles, and the importance of story in a game is also tackled in this long dialogue between siblings. Cliff and his brother, "papi bezi," get to a little bit a squabbling towards the end, but it's refreshing and humanizes the interview more than anything.
See Also:
Joystiq interview: Cliffy B
[Thanks, Mike]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Matt @ Aug 8th 2006 3:01PM
EB Games/Gamestop is very much a holder of street date, so even if Microsoft said it were alright to sell GoW before 11/12/06, the chances of EB/Gamestop not following through are pretty likely.
JimmyHACK @ Aug 8th 2006 3:02PM
saw this coming being november 12 is sunday.. so ya store will have before the weekend.. and most sell stuff as soon as in stock... gonna be a great game to kill that last week waiting on ps3 launch
marcin @ Aug 8th 2006 3:04PM
i want a good FPS for my xbox now.
rainbow not releasing til november, and both COD2 and Halo 2 have gotten very boring.
Rare Hare @ Aug 8th 2006 3:06PM
Doesn't make a difference to me when it comes out, because i won't have an Xbox 360 until sometimes during the first half of next year.
Games like Gears of War, Dead Rising, and Saint's Row will all just have to wait for me until then :)
Nate @ Aug 8th 2006 3:06PM
I can't take this hype anymore!
UNSCleric @ Aug 8th 2006 3:13PM
I talked about this a week ago on my site.
JimThomeIsMyHomie25 @ Aug 8th 2006 3:19PM
Dont get too excited because my local Gamestop had Halo 2 in stock over a month before it came out and had to sign an agreement with Microsoft not to sell it or play it. They couldnt even open the box with all the Halo 2 copies in it and look at the game case.
.ed @ Aug 8th 2006 3:26PM
it seems there is more hype on this date than there is on the game... ugh.
my guess is they are waiting to release it on the day of Wii's release, or just before, because people will be in stores like crazy for Wii, it's games and accessories, so when stuff sells out, or if they have an xbox, they can get gears of war, too.
good tactic.
Shannon @ Aug 8th 2006 4:03PM
Matt #1 you just thoroughly and completely missed the whole point of this article. CliffyB just said that the game ONLY has a ship date, and can be sold whenever. So the 12th isn't a "street date" it's the date all stores should definitely have copies...
I honestly do not understand how they could have made the article any more clear.
Dizzy the Egg @ Aug 8th 2006 4:11PM
I asked my local Gaming store (a big chain) when Gears of War was out, and he asked me if it was a driving game. I think that kinda sums up how all this hype seems to be internet based.
DouggyD @ Aug 8th 2006 4:17PM
"CliffyB implied that much of the viral campaign leading up to Nov. 12 announcement was Mark Rein's idea. "we had no prior knowledge of the MFenix stuff so it seemed like a good idea at the time," he said."
That is so taken out of context. The actual quote from the website is: "To us this was an absolutely huge announcement. Mark thought it was a good idea to let the fans know to be on the look out for the announcement. We had no prior knowledge of the MFenix stuff so it seemed like a good idea at the time."
WHich implies that the thread he started on the other Gears website seemed like a good idea at the time and that Epic had no involvement in the viral marketing campaign (aka. 'the MFenix stuff')
greg @ Aug 8th 2006 4:28PM
dizzy,
the clerk working at your local game store is definatley a moron and should find work elsewhere. does he even know what a video game is? my guess is no. stop shopping at sears for your games to.
bladestar @ Aug 8th 2006 4:30PM
@Dizzy the Egg,
The other day I asked this girl at gamestop about the wii and she said, "Excuse me?" I said Nintendo revolution and she said; they have no date. You have to understand that some people working at these stores are new or don't know anything about video games.
MDB @ Aug 8th 2006 4:39PM
i'm tired of these misleading article names. first of all, this is pretty old news--this should have been reported along with the original announcement, since when Mark made the forum postings regarding this matter, he said this in the same post as the emergence day announcement.
secondly, i have joystiq on my google personalized page, so i went alllll the way out of my way to click on the link to this page thinking that gears of war may actually ship earlier. the title should read something like 'GoW could be available several days earlier," something to that effect. Way to get my hopes up, Joystiq. Help us RSS subscribers out.
Dirk Dorkelson @ Aug 8th 2006 4:43PM
" i want a good FPS for my xbox now.
rainbow not releasing til november, and both COD2 and Halo 2 have gotten very boring."
PDZ has great multiplayer and now can be had new for $30. Well worth that price.
Smack042 @ Aug 8th 2006 4:59PM
Yay! It's still Brute Force 2.0
MDB @ Aug 8th 2006 5:01PM
I'm gonna go ahead and say that PDZ sucks. You don't have to agree of course, but it certainly is not next-gen--and I'm not just referring to the graphics. While the graphics do look like glorified Xbox games, the gameplay is just unexciting. Sniping is nonexistant. While some people say that it's supposed to be difficult, it's too difficult to make it worth the effort, taking away a valuable part of any online FPS. The weapons are terrible. There's one or two good ones that everyone uses if they can get them. One truly revolutionary thing that Halo 2 added to multiplay was the actual use of a melee attack. When and how to use the melee adds so much to the game. In PDZ there may as well not even be a melee because its so difficult to land and never comes into use. I'd rather play COD2 and Halo 2 and GRAW for 25 years straight than play PDZ.
Dirk Dorkelson @ Aug 8th 2006 5:24PM
Yeah, see, I'm the opposite. I'd rather play PDZ over COD2 any day (can't speak for GRAW. Haven't played it). I've had games on PDZ where sniping (with the Jackal, not that horrible Shockwave thing) has worked just fine, but you're right: It's not the kind of game where you can just camp out and snipe all day. That's a big part of why I like it.
Re: the graphics. While the character models look like Xbox 1.5, the environments look fantastic on my HD setup, particularly on Gasplant, Plaza and Rooftops (three of the four new maps.) Of the older maps, I think Old Town and Tower look a bit better than Temple, Urban and Desert.
Mostly I love PDZ's variety of weapons and gadgets. There are only four weapons I can't stand (the Psychosis gun, the Shockwave and the grenades), but you can create custom weapon sets to avoid those. I dig the ability to play with bots, and there's a pretty good variety of game types.
That said, obviously people who love to play sniping-based shooters are going to be frustrated. Certainly, I hate games where everyone just camps out and waits for two or three people to run out in the open. But lots of PDZ's assault-type weapons have scopes (a la the battle rifle in Halo 2), enabling on-the-run sniping, which I find to be a pretty fun gameplay twist, covering for people in Capture the Flag and whatnot.
Also, for whatever reason, there seem to be fewer tools playing PDZ online than Halo 2.