Ranting and Raving!

I don't even know where to begin.

First off, release date of Nov 14th. Fine, if the game is not finished, and from the look of the demo it's not, then get the game finished and release it when it's done. If it's finished on the 14th, and that apparently is when it's done, then release it. But, why release a game in the UK on the 14th, and the US on the 17th (although on one sega nerd website it said the 18th) and elsewhere on a different date? Does SI do this? I would think not, they want their money as soon as they can get it, and they should. So why a different release date? Maybe because of shipping, it takes a while to ship disks from the UK to the US? Are you kidding me? Isn't it being released electronically? Isn't that the beauty of the internet? Can't I buy what I want to buy? Why the holdup? Because Amazon releases on the 17th? I live on the Mexican border, by the time Amazon ships all the way out to the frontier, if I ordered the disk copy (who still orders disks anyways?), it may arrive on the 20th, 21st, maybe even on the 22nd. Don't I live in the Information Age? Who still has dial-up? Like I said, I live on the frontier, with one computer store (wal-mart), we don't even have a Taco Bell, but I have high-speed internet.

Second, why not release Football Manager to the US? I don't believe this crap about "we need to buy WWSM so that SEGA will release SI products and soccer products to the US, if we don't show support for the game in the US, blah, blah, blah, blah" Who gives a flying flip if it's FM09 or WWSM09 that is being bought? I don't need to do SEGA's work for them in figuring out how many products are being shipped, by buying a different product. Casual gamers are not going to stand in Wal-Mart and go "hmm, Football Manager? I don't see the Cowboys or the Steelers on the box, won't buy that one. Oh, but look Worldwide Soccer Manager, I gotta have some of that!" Casual gamers don't buy management games, casual gamers, if they buy soccer games at all will buy Wii soccer, or FIFA on XBox, not a management game. C'mon, who are y'all kidding? Anyone that will buy a soccer management game will know that elsewhere soccer is called "football" and will not get the two confused. The argument about US gamers not recognising Football Manager is simply STUPID.

Oh, one last thing, why is the 3D portion of the game ridiculous? Not because it isn't cool, it is, not because it's not tactically better than 2D, because it is, not even because the players are so small, although they are. It's ridiculous simply because it's not optimised. My computer runs Flight Simulator, Quake and World of Warcraft. Way, way, way more graphics intensive, yet it skips and bogs during the 3D game? Poorly done, no, just not optimised. I have hope that the released version will be a little more optimised than the demo, and if it isn't, I'm sure the code will be optimised later.

That's it, I was sitting here watching Monday Night Football, reading the outrage about Steam releasing late, thinking about free trade, the internet, the dissolution of electronic borders and how Kurt Warner can still throw the ball at his advanced age and state of decay, and I thought I might throw my enraged thoughts into one run on sentance after another.

Flame at will.

Oh, has anyone run the demo on a Macbook Pro? How'd it run, I want one of those! Trying to get my Apple stock to rise!! :-)

Righty...

1st, America releases games on a tuesday, dont ask me why as i have never seen a decent answer... who the f*** has time to spend playing a game on a tuesday when they should technicaly either be at school or at work.

Friday has always seemed the best to me as that gives you a whole weekend to sit a play it if you wanted.

As a result the digital download of the game gets held back so that people dont ignore the boxed version. (as to why they dont just abandon boxed versions.. again im no expert)

2nd, Because the vast majority of Americans think Football is a game played with your hands, I have a friend in Texas who i have managed to get hooked on football (both real and game) and he ordered a Glasgow Rangers top so he could wear it instead of the usual "American Football" tops... according to him there are a hell of a lot of "jocks" who do nothing but sit and ridicule anything not American football.

By calling it Soccer you are more likely to get their attention as they wont expect to see big fat guys in armour when they look at the ingame screens.

3rd, cant speak for you but my comp runs the 3d portion fine... and i should hope so as i rebuilt the thing a month ago and ive spent about £3k in the last 3 years on the thing.

You will get no flame from me. You are correct in every thing you say. If the game is not released on the 14th here in North America my business is gone. I am sick and tired of North America being give second class treatment for WWSM. The customer service on this franchise has been total crap. Especially with the promisses that have been made on how it will be improved. Live up to what you say Sports Interactive, it would be a nice change.

Now what are us Europeans suppose to think of spoiled brat reactions like this? I want i want i want... because i'm an American.

We had to wait 10 days for Gears of War. We even had to wait months for a new videogame console to be released over here (Nintendo Wii). For once you have to wait 3 days and "it's not fair, bad customer service, etc". Stop taking everything for granted.

your point about the 3d is more of the same whinging weve all heard 100 times.

3d works just fine for many many users. and many of these dont have super dooper PCs.

Now what are us Europeans suppose to think of spoiled brat reactions like this? I want i want i want... because i'm an American.

We had to wait 10 days for Gears of War. We even had to wait months for a new videogame console to be released over here (Nintendo Wii). For once you have to wait 3 days and "it's not fair, bad customer service, etc". Stop taking everything for granted.

sensational comment.

PS: and im from australia. we never get anything on time.

I believe its sega who arrange the release dates, not SI.

SI just make the game, its sega who publish it, and therefore work to distribute it.

Do correct me if i am wrong.

You will get no flame from me. You are correct in every thing you say. If the game is not released on the 14th here in North America my business is gone. I am sick and tired of North America being give second class treatment for WWSM. The customer service on this franchise has been total crap. Especially with the promisses that have been made on how it will be improved. Live up to what you say Sports Interactive, it would be a nice change.

Lol try living outside of America/Japan and getting shafted in so many gaming decisions its not funny. Backwards compatibility for PS3? Nope. Ridiculously high RRP game prices (i.e. in the order 50% more even when our damn AUD was almost 1:1 with the USD) compared to the USA? Yep. Console and hardware releases delayed forever and ever? Yep

With some reservations after seeing the thread title, I decided to give this a read, and then I saw this;

y'all

And your thread lost all credability (if any) that it may of had.

Ah, not really a spoiled brat reaction at all. I would possibly agree with you, except for the fact that you are talking about console games, I don't remember Gears of War being a download through XBox Live. I wouldn't have as much of a problem if FM or WWSM was ONLY released as a boxed version and not digitally. BUT, digital versions that are released on different days, ONLY because of different regions doesn't make sense. Should I have to wait three days to see a post I made here on the forums, just because I'm in America? The beautiful thing about the internet is the fact that I can be in America, I can download something from the UK, and then post on a forum board that is read by someone in France, all dependant on the speed of my internet connection NOT on the speed of the post office, UPS or FedEx. Why should it be different for FM/WWSM?

Also, I'm not whining (whinging?) about the 3D in the demo. I'm extremely happy SI decided to put a 3D aspect into the game. My problem is with the lack of code optimisation in the demo. This is mid-90's graphics we're looking at, and it's bringing my computer, that will run other graphics-intensive games just fine to it's knees. Will it be better in the final release? Probably, at least I hope so. If it's not, i'm sure subsequent patches will help with code optimisation. I'm sure SI is not very experienced in the graphics department, for a first attempt, the 3D isn't too bad.

Also, I'm not whining (whinging?)

there's this other word, 'whining', which generally means the same thing but which you've likely never heard given the tendency of yanks to have no idea about life outside US.

about the 3D in the demo. I'm extremely happy SI decided to put a 3D aspect into the game. My problem is with the lack of code optimisation in the demo. This is mid-90's graphics we're looking at, and it's bringing my computer, that will run other graphics-intensive games just fine to it's knees. Will it be better in the final release? Probably, at least I hope so. If it's not, i'm sure subsequent patches will help with code optimisation. I'm sure SI is not very experienced in the graphics department, for a first attempt, the 3D isn't too bad.

my PC is far from brand new. its a 3 yr old laptop and i run the 3d just fine. Id also suggest that simply comparing your PC's performance running other games is not accurate as FM is doing more in the background than simply putting pretty pictures on a screen.

1) Ok as someone mentioned before this most of the thing get released in the US way before it gets released here.. for example I am a mad need for speed fan and i have bought every copy.. and guess what the new version gets released in the US first before it gets released here. so to wait few more days for the release of the game is no big deal.. you win some and loose some...

2) Far as i know there is not a big difference between Football manager and WWSM (guessing its just the name) as in the US Football is something played with hands (another version of rugby) so it makes sense to name the product for everyone to know what exactly they are buying.

3) Yes the 3D has got problems running in certain computers and SI have said they are trying to sort this out and there is a huge possibility that it will be getting sorted out with a patch on release day.

The 3D is only there to show what is happening on the pitch and the graphics are not ment to be PES or FIFA style.. and I have been running the demo on 3D and it does the job perfectly well.

Fair enough, I'll accept the spelling of Whinging, although you're over generalisation of yanks having no idea about life outside of US may or may not be applicable to individual yanks. While I don't consider myself a 'yank', I am American, my cultural experience is vast, owing itself to a military background. Also, don't discount the differences in culture that can be experienced in the United States. Regions in the United States are as different as England, Germany and Italy are. But, that is an aside argument, one that tiresome and not needed in this forum.

Simply comparing my PC's performance running other games is extremely accurate I'd say. In fact, all computer review sources use games, other graphic programs and database intensive programs as a basis for comparison. Without knowing the true inner workings of FM, I can only guess that the computations 'behind the scenes' are no more intense than say they are in Microsoft Flight Simulator, in fact I would probably argue MSFS is probably the most demanding 'game' of all. If I can run MSFS, albeit with graphical settings kinda low, I should be able to breeze through the FM demo, with it's fairly simplistic 3D graphics.

Am I mad? No, I just would like to point out that code optimisation is probably not high on SI's priority, people should be patient, 3-6 months from now, this game will be amazing, and all the forum posts about how people won't buy it, or it sucks, we'll be watching them eat their words!

I'm from the US and this will be my third time buying WWSM. To me the trouble with WWSM not being released until the 17th is the fact they posted for all to see it would be the 14th up until Nov. 7th. Matter of fact if you look at this screen shot (taken last Friday the day the switch was made, and yes it still reads that way today) you will see that STEAM lists

both the 17th and 14th as the release day.

If they had said the 17th from the beginning I wouldn't have as much trouble with it. But when they change a week before, well that's just not right. The end result is they will hurt only themselves. Either US buyers will quit buying the game or they will take the advice of the majority of US players and just import FM.

It would also make sense to me to just have the FM name sold in the US. If Sega wants to have sales figures for the US they can just use Amazons.US disk sales and online sales tracked by isp to prove it was a US purchase. This must be possible as they can restrict which version you can buy using your isp so keeping sales figures should be no problem.

Fair enough, I'll accept the spelling of Whinging, although you're over generalisation of yanks having no idea about life outside of US may or may not be applicable to individual yanks.

haha.. fair enough mate. i couldnt resist the sly jab.

no offense intended.

Australia seems to get the raw end of both sticks.

Steam had CoD4 at $55, before raising the price to $88.50 because local sellers believed they were undercutting them, so we were paying MORE for the digital download than the boxed game....(Its still $88.50 USD here in Aus, which is about $130 AUD, highway robbery)

One thing I should have said in my original point is this:

Why does SI make Worldwide Soccer Manager in the first place? For the American market? For casual gamers at Wal-Mart who might buy the game, and SI doesn't want to see confusion reign supreme because it says 'Football' on it? Like I said, casual gamers are NOT going to buy this game, in fact I'd say casual gamers buy very, very few management-style games in the first place. Hard-core gamers buy very few management-style games either. Management-style games are a niche segment.

Why does SI make Worldwide Soccer Manager in the first place? For the American market? Seriously, I'm American, and I gotta ask: What American market? Even if SI sold to every hard-core American soccer fan, who also happens to be a computer gamer, who also happens to ONLY watch MLS, they'd sell what?, 3 copies? Hardly worth the effort SI or SEGA seem to be putting into WWSM. I say scrap WWSM all together, make it easy for SI, and pssst... I'll give you a little secret... WWSM is still American-grammatically wrong in some aspects anyways.

There's a greater conspiracy going on here! Can you people not see it? Are you so blind? This is SEGA's and SI's attempt at winning over the mighty Wal-Mart computer game buying crowd. Well, they won't stand for it, I tell ya. There is no way Joe Dirt is gonna grab WWSM off the shelf of Wal-Mart, not when Sims 2, Bass Fishin' or Hunting Unlimited 4 (seriously, they didn't just start at #4, there was 3 other versions of this game that came before) is on the shelves.

Give it up SI, can WWSM and just give us Football Manager!

haha.. fair enough mate. i couldnt resist the sly jab.

no offense intended.

None taken at all!! In fact, this whole post is just for fun!

I work for Yanks, wish I didn't, but I need the money.

Nothing more than the type of American ranting I have heard for years......... but they do pay well, so shh !!!!

Now what are us Europeans suppose to think of spoiled brat reactions like this? I want i want i want... because i'm an American.

We had to wait 10 days for Gears of War. We even had to wait months for a new videogame console to be released over here (Nintendo Wii). For once you have to wait 3 days and "it's not fair, bad customer service, etc". Stop taking everything for granted.

I agree.

Fair enough, I'll accept the spelling of Whinging, although you're over generalisation of yanks having no idea about life outside of US may or may not be applicable to individual yanks. While I don't consider myself a 'yank', I am American, my cultural experience is vast, owing itself to a military background. Also, don't discount the differences in culture that can be experienced in the United States. Regions in the United States are as different as England, Germany and Italy are. But, that is an aside argument, one that tiresome and not needed in this forum.

Simply comparing my PC's performance running other games is extremely accurate I'd say. In fact, all computer review sources use games, other graphic programs and database intensive programs as a basis for comparison. Without knowing the true inner workings of FM, I can only guess that the computations 'behind the scenes' are no more intense than say they are in Microsoft Flight Simulator, in fact I would probably argue MSFS is probably the most demanding 'game' of all. If I can run MSFS, albeit with graphical settings kinda low, I should be able to breeze through the FM demo, with it's fairly simplistic 3D graphics.

Am I mad? No, I just would like to point out that code optimisation is probably not high on SI's priority, people should be patient, 3-6 months from now, this game will be amazing, and all the forum posts about how people won't buy it, or it sucks, we'll be watching them eat their words!

Again, im not going to slate you personally, although other American people are spoilt brats and expect everything. IIRC a game made in Scotland, Grand Theft Auto, was actually over with your lot before us. Its aimed around American cities to stop your country men complaining.

Just a small dig. Isnt the whole of the American population due to a Military culture. Or at least a bully the world culture.

On the FM thing. FM isnt all graphical. It has a huge amount going on in the background. Your flight simulator will use mainly the graphics card and a small amount of RAM. FM will use a small peice of Graphical card and a high amount of RAM. RAM or Random Access Memory will affect the speed more than the Graphics card will. How much RAM have you got?

I definitely agree with the release date thing......there's no reason to push back the release date.....the entire reason I'm buying it from steam is because i didn't want to wait longer than I had too......I also agree that WWSM makes no sense....FM is the way to go. Anyone who plans on buying this game knows the difference between football and soccer....and anyone who doesn't can look at the cover.....

my main beef though is with the release date.

"Just a small dig. Isnt the whole of the American population due to a Military culture. Or at least a bully the world culture."

Ah, got me there, but we just elected Obama, so maybe this'll change. 'Course, it's kinda hard to argue with history, and if we're being honest, very, very few cultures have been as 'military' as England's over the course of her history. Not a dig on England, or the English, it's just a fact, and one I definetly wouldn't change, as humankind would not be as advanced as it is without the English.

I understand that FM isn't exactly graphical. In fact, you could probably equate FM more towards dBase, Access or Sybase, easier than you can to MSFS, Quake or GTA. But, that's the exact point I'm making. SI didn't seem to use much of the graphics card, and if they did, they used it pretty inefficiently. FM08, I'm sure, was pretty processor, RAM and disk access speed dependant, where FM09 seems to be also, with a little graphics card thrown in, but thrown in haphazardly, as the outdated graphics seem to be processor-driven and not graphics card driven. Maybe we won't see much of a change in FM09, throughout the life of the game, but I bet FM10 will be a marked improvement on the graphics side.

Now the question comes, do I really care? Do I really care about the 3D match engine? Yeah, I kinda do. Why? I'm a big fan of Football Manager, I believe it's the best management simulation on the market. Not just football management simulation, but the most enjoyable management simulation available. Therefore, I don't want to see it become a small little niche program, hidden away in the bargain bin, or only available through obscure websites, going the way of the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, because it stubbornly stayed textual. And while HGTTG had it's charm and it's obsessive fans, that was in the infancy of computer games. I'd rather not see FM go that way.

FIFA Manager, while not in FM's league, has a polished, pretty look about it with a nice looking 3D engine. Are graphics the only thing? No, but they can't hurt, and if FM has one area it can get better in, it's the graphics department.

BTW, I've got 2GB of RAM on my machine. Again, not a lot, but my machine handles WWSM08, internet explorer, iTunes and the tons of anti-spyware/virus protection software that PC's demand, all at the same time, not giving me much of a problem when I slip out of WWSM to check the web, check email or download the latest episode of World Soccer Daily or Football Weekly for my iPod.

It has zero to do with being an America. It is about customer service and how lousy it is from Sega and SI. We have been promissed equal treatment on WWSM and we get screwed every year. Do not make promisses you can't keep. In the future you may want to actually know what you are talking about before you post.

Now what are us Europeans suppose to think of spoiled brat reactions like this? I want i want i want... because i'm an American.

We had to wait 10 days for Gears of War. We even had to wait months for a new videogame console to be released over here (Nintendo Wii). For once you have to wait 3 days and "it's not fair, bad customer service, etc". Stop taking everything for granted.

The picture below is priceless. Just shows the BS we deal with on WWSM. Its like no one has a clue in the whole process when it comes to releasing it. Maybe Sega, Steam and SI could actually talk about this a couple weeks ago, instead of having it completely screwed up days before release. It is quite pathetic.

I'm from the US and this will be my third time buying WWSM. To me the trouble with WWSM not being released until the 17th is the fact they posted for all to see it would be the 14th up until Nov. 7th. Matter of fact if you look at this screen shot (taken last Friday the day the switch was made, and yes it still reads that way today) you will see that STEAM lists

both the 17th and 14th as the release day.

If they had said the 17th from the beginning I wouldn't have as much trouble with it. But when they change a week before, well that's just not right. The end result is they will hurt only themselves. Either US buyers will quit buying the game or they will take the advice of the majority of US players and just import FM.

It would also make sense to me to just have the FM name sold in the US. If Sega wants to have sales figures for the US they can just use Amazons.US disk sales and online sales tracked by isp to prove it was a US purchase. This must be possible as they can restrict which version you can buy using your isp so keeping sales figures should be no problem.

"Just a small dig. Isnt the whole of the American population due to a Military culture. Or at least a bully the world culture."

Ah, got me there, but we just elected Obama, so maybe this'll change. 'Course, it's kinda hard to argue with history, and if we're being honest, very, very few cultures have been as 'military' as England's over the course of her history. Not a dig on England, or the English, it's just a fact, and one I definetly wouldn't change, as humankind would not be as advanced as it is without the English.

Good job im Scottish then

Haha! My mum's English, but I don't hold it against her!

sensational comment.

PS: and im from australia. we never get anything on time.

Umm interesting this, everytime I hear that it takes ages to get in Aussie. In NZ I have never had any issues with getting the game on stated release date either by pre-ordering it or simply soing to the store and getting it. FM09 for example I will get on the 14th as stated.

I'm guessing that as a profit making business SI would not release WWSM in the US if the sales figures didn't warrant it. If SI want to aim at the Walmart crowd I don't see what's wrong with that. It isn't some kind of exclusive club. It would be crazy to only sell the game to people who already know to seek it out - your market can only shrink and not grow and that is a suicidal way to run a business.

Righty...

1st, America releases games on a tuesday, dont ask me why as i have never seen a decent answer... who the f*** has time to spend playing a game on a tuesday when they should technicaly either be at school or at work.

Friday has always seemed the best to me as that gives you a whole weekend to sit a play it if you wanted.

As a result the digital download of the game gets held back so that people dont ignore the boxed version. (as to why they dont just abandon boxed versions.. again im no expert)

.

Its my understanding that games release on a tuesday in the US for the same reason that films are, so they can take the figures the from tuesday to sunday and call it the openning weekend . Or at least that was originally what happened and it has now become the convention

your point about the 3d is more of the same whinging weve all heard 100 times.

3d works just fine for many many users. and many of these dont have super dooper PCs.

That's what he said, it is poorly optimised. Works well for some, not for others.

PES 2008 was the same. Poorly optimised. PES 2009 looks a lot better and yet also runs a lot better on the majority of PCs.

Umm interesting this, everytime I hear that it takes ages to get in Aussie. In NZ I have never had any issues with getting the game on stated release date either by pre-ordering it or simply soing to the store and getting it. FM09 for example I will get on the 14th as stated.

I have trouble getting games for a fair price. the money they charge for games in NZ is best described as extortionate.

I'm from the US and this will be my third time buying WWSM. To me the trouble with WWSM not being released until the 17th is the fact they posted for all to see it would be the 14th up until Nov. 7th. Matter of fact if you look at this screen shot (taken last Friday the day the switch was made, and yes it still reads that way today) you will see that STEAM lists

both the 17th and 14th as the release day.

If they had said the 17th from the beginning I wouldn't have as much trouble with it. But when they change a week before, well that's just not right. The end result is they will hurt only themselves. Either US buyers will quit buying the game or they will take the advice of the majority of US players and just import FM.

It would also make sense to me to just have the FM name sold in the US. If Sega wants to have sales figures for the US they can just use Amazons.US disk sales and online sales tracked by isp to prove it was a US purchase. This must be possible as they can restrict which version you can buy using your isp so keeping sales figures should be no problem.

This is a STEAM site not a Sega or SI site. If Steam advertised the US game with the UK release date that's their fault, not the Devs/publishers.

As for the delay in release. If it is true that most games are released on a Tuesday in the US then it makes sense to release it on a tuesday. As for digital distribution. If the Steam version was released in a region before a boxed version was. Steam could monopolise the market for a few days and could just decide to charge over the top for the privelage.

The only way in which Sega 'might' be slightly guilty for the delayed release in the US is if they want to do the best in first week sales if this is measured from tuesday in the US.

Australia seems to get the raw end of both sticks.

Steam had CoD4 at $55, before raising the price to $88.50 because local sellers believed they were undercutting them, so we were paying MORE for the digital download than the boxed game....(Its still $88.50 USD here in Aus, which is about $130 AUD, highway robbery)

EB games here in Melbourne (Australia) charges 89 dollars to pre-order FM 09 while selling FM 08 for the same price! Thats around 40 pounds sterling, if I'm not mistaken..

This is a STEAM site not a Sega or SI site. If Steam advertised the US game with the UK release date that's their fault, not the Devs/publishers.

As for the delay in release. If it is true that most games are released on a Tuesday in the US then it makes sense to release it on a tuesday. As for digital distribution. If the Steam version was released in a region before a boxed version was. Steam could monopolise the market for a few days and could just decide to charge over the top for the privelage.

The only way in which Sega 'might' be slightly guilty for the delayed release in the US is if they want to do the best in first week sales if this is measured from tuesday in the US.

So, Sega was smart enough to tell STEAM to region lock which game you can by using isp. But at the same time they couldn't say "oh, by the way the game doesn't release in the US 'til Nov 17th."?

It was listed as the 14th since the day it was posted (in both the big green box and on the right) and nobody from Sega noticed?

Look at the confusion on the STEAM release date around the world not just the US.

Sega dropped the ball on this one, not STEAM.

"it's kinda hard to argue with history, and if we're being honest, very, very few cultures have been as 'military' as England's over the course of her history. Not a dig on England, or the English, it's just a fact, and one I definetly wouldn't change, as humankind would not be as advanced as it is without the English.

hahahaha! your history is worse than you think! If it was for us English we would not be advanced at all we would be sitting around like fat lazy idiots like you lot are now! I think you will find modern civilaziation has alot to thank the Romans for!! Now take it easy we are the same sides dont forget, I know how much any Amercian with Military background needs to be reminded who is on whos side as lets face fact "Friendly Fire" is just "Fire" to you!!!

If the Steam version was released in a region before a boxed version was. Steam could monopolise the market for a few days and could just decide to charge over the top for the privelage.

Agreed if Amazon didn't have the disks on hand to ship. But as of last Friday shops were selling FM in Europe so I believe Amazon already has their supply of disks. If they don't then they should and Sega should be planning for that every year so we get one world wide release, especially after posting the 14th from the beginning.

So, why not tell Amazon it is ok to go ahead and ship instead of moving STEAM back? Those that bought the disk version from Amazon would be thrilled to learn they were getting the game early and WWSM buyers would be pleased to be on equal footing with FM as has been promised now for the last two years. A win\win for Sega and SI.

btw i just checked steam,

Says:

Available: November 12th, 2008

This game will unlock in approximately 1 day and 12 hours

WOW, that would be sweet, but I'd bet it's a typo of some sort.

Although in reply to the guy who asked about a delayed release date

Have you EVER seen a boxed version of a game/cd/electronic device released on the same day everywhere in the world (sure maybe 1 or 2 are, but not all)

take Sonic Heroes for instance: released December 2003 in Japan, February 6 2004 in Europe and January 2004 for America