Gears of War 3 Slips: Not a Quality Issue
Will now be "the marquee title for the holiday season" in 2011
Epic Games and Microsoft have delayed the launch of Gears of War 3. The game will miss its Spring 2011 launch window, hitting shop shelves in Autumn next year instead.
"The teams at Microsoft Game Studios and Epic Games have done great work thus far readying the title for release in the spring of 2011. However, we’ve elected to move the launch of Gears of War 3 until fall 2011 to make it the marquee title for the holiday season," Microsoft said in a statement.
Executive producer Rod Fergusson was keen to state that this is "not a quality issue". He wasn't spectacularly clear on precisely what the issue is, though.
"I know fans are going to be disappointed with the new release date, but rest assured that this is a business decision between partners, and not a quality issue. Gears 3 was on track to be the most polished Gears of War game ever when it released in April, and this additional time allows us to polish it that much more before it hits shelves next fall," he said in a separate statement.
Earlier in the year - before the change of release date was announced - Epic VP Mark Rein discussed the timing of Gears 3 with SPOnG, saying "I don't think you need to (release at) Christmas. It's a well-established franchise now and I think the people who love Gears are going to want to come play Gears, and I think it's actually kind of nice to have some time away from the big Christmas games.
"I like to see the industry spread the releases around the year. I think Grand Theft Auto IV certainly proved that a Spring release can be the biggest release in the way that a Call of Duty proves that a Fall release can be the biggest release. Hopefully we're getting away from bunching everything up at Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Christmas, I would love to have a big Christmas release. It did very well for us the first two times, I'm not against it. At the same time I'm happy that there's space and hopefully we'll do even better."
Kinect support then?
"The teams at Microsoft Game Studios and Epic Games have done great work thus far readying the title for release in the spring of 2011. However, we’ve elected to move the launch of Gears of War 3 until fall 2011 to make it the marquee title for the holiday season," Microsoft said in a statement.
Executive producer Rod Fergusson was keen to state that this is "not a quality issue". He wasn't spectacularly clear on precisely what the issue is, though.
"I know fans are going to be disappointed with the new release date, but rest assured that this is a business decision between partners, and not a quality issue. Gears 3 was on track to be the most polished Gears of War game ever when it released in April, and this additional time allows us to polish it that much more before it hits shelves next fall," he said in a separate statement.
Earlier in the year - before the change of release date was announced - Epic VP Mark Rein discussed the timing of Gears 3 with SPOnG, saying "I don't think you need to (release at) Christmas. It's a well-established franchise now and I think the people who love Gears are going to want to come play Gears, and I think it's actually kind of nice to have some time away from the big Christmas games.
"I like to see the industry spread the releases around the year. I think Grand Theft Auto IV certainly proved that a Spring release can be the biggest release in the way that a Call of Duty proves that a Fall release can be the biggest release. Hopefully we're getting away from bunching everything up at Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Christmas, I would love to have a big Christmas release. It did very well for us the first two times, I'm not against it. At the same time I'm happy that there's space and hopefully we'll do even better."
Kinect support then?
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