Amazon ceases taking Gears of War 2 pre-orders [update]

Today's Today was the day. After being "announced" over a year ago, Gears of War 2 is now was available for pre-order from Amazon.com. Millions of voracious gamers have reportedly flooded the site in the moments since the announcement, hopeful that their early action will guarantee them a copy of the highly anticipated game. The title is expected to be in incredibly short supply when it's released Nov. 15, 2008.

OK, we'll come clean -- everything in the last paragraph is pretty much made up (except for the [brief] Amazon pre-order, oddly enough). While a Gears sequel seems like a no-brainer (and has been hinted at a few times), the game hasn't been officially announced yet. And while Amazon lists did list Nov. 15, 2008 as the release date, you have just as good a chance at picking the right date by taking a dart to a calendar of Q4 2008. Whenever the release comes, though, we're relatively confident that hundreds of copies will be available at your local Best Buy, making pre-ordering 11 months in advance kind of pointless. Then again, posting "FIRST!" in comments threads is pretty pointless too, and people still do that, so go nuts!

[Original headline: "Pre-order Gears of War 2 ridiculously early"]