GAME have shared their disappointment that retailers are now frequently breaking street dates, pointing to last week’s Pokémon X and Pokémon Y launch for which Tesco and ShopTo delivered copies early.
With Saturday’s worldwide launch date broken, stores such as GAME, HMV and Tesco were all selling the game a day early on the Friday, with ShopTo admitting that it hadn’t warned their warehouse that they needed to aim for a weekend delivery.
“We take compliance with all industry standards and regulations very seriously,” GAME category director Charlotte Knight commented. “It was extremely disappointing to see a number of competitors break street date over Thursday and Friday on Nintendo products across both online and store environments.
“We are seeing street date breaches occur on a frequent basis and this undermines the work which goes in to creating exceptional launches. We’ve worked very closely with Nintendo in the run-up to launch in order to make them as successful as possible. We have worked with them on every decision taken.”
[Thanks MCV]