A week a two after COD? Ubisoft been taking brave pills?

You're the one taking pills, it's not Ubisoft but Square Enix who's the publisher of this game.

Ubisoft??

H was confused probably because of the reference to the UBI's franchise.

So Square are the publishers? Oops. I thought this looked a bit too good for today's Ubisoft :)

Crazy... too much game in October and November.

September is so bad?

ahem Assassin's Creed 3 "Ahem cough" man this throat of mine... wghua!

The importance of COD's has diminished considerably since the good old days of COD4. Yes the game series continues to largely be a sales juggernaut at retail, but the days of the release of a new game in the COD franchise being able to derail and completely screw up the release of any other game within it's launch window (two weeks on either side of the COD release date), are pretty much over. Activision is largely to blame, releasing a new COD every year like clockwork, has taken the 'special' out of the series, even among series fans. COD releases have become so routine, that all but the most die hard of COD fans still feel they need to mark weeks off their calendars dedicated to nothing but the newest COD release. Everyone else just buys COD, and then continues on to purchase and play whatever else they were going to purchase anyway.

Last year is a perfect example of this. Within 7 DAYS of the release of Modern Warfare 3, the following games were also released and each went on to sell millions of copies each: Skyrim, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, and Saints Row: The Third. Seven days before Modern Warfare 3 released, Uncharted 3 was released, and it too went on to sell millions of copies. Saints Row 3 in particular, being the 'weakest' franchise of the bunch, went on to sell over 4 million copies - extremely respectable numbers, more than half of which were sold in November of last year, in the weeks directly following it's release. And no surprise to this gamer, but something similar happened in the fall of 2010 following the release of Black Ops. Black Ops may hold the records of the fastest selling, highest selling COD game of all time, but even it's release could not put a damper on the release of other games within it's launch window, like Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and NBA Jams . . . all games that went on to sell millions of copies each, despite releasing less than 7 days following the release of Black Ops. Keeping this track record in mind, then so long as Hitman: Absolution turns out to be a stellar game, then Square Enix/Eidos Interactive/IO Interactive have nothing to worry about releasing their game within days of the Black Ops 2 release date. If Hitman is good, they are going to sell millions of copies no matter. Matter of fact, just looked over this year's calendar, and found that Assassin's Creed III, Halo 4, and Resident Evil 6 are all releasing well within Black Ops II's release window - is it me, or does it seem like every year more games seem to get released during COD's release window, and then go on to sell millions of copies each, despite COD releasing in the window?

Were I a game publisher, what I would really be concerned about is the potential release of Grand Theft Auto V this October. Because Rockstar does not bring out a GTA every year, and then spend every waking moment the remaining 364 days of the year, shovel 'Grand Theft Everything' down gamers' throats (the way Activision does with COD), GTA is still the true 900lb gorilla of videogaming when it comes into the room. GTA games tend to sell in the 20 million units, or higher range every time one is released, and the popularity increase of COD since the release of COD4, has not diminished GTA's selling power. The end result being, most gamers still tend to view GTA as a special event worth setting aside a few weeks to play exclusively; and with 50 to 70 hours of single player campaign each, there is a very good reason why.

At E3 in a few weeks, if Rockstar finally announces GTA V is returning to the series' traditional mid-October release window, then in the weeks following E3, do not be surprised to see other publishers begin to move their October releases around to give GTA V a wide birth; the series still commands that kind of respect in the publishing business; and after how Red Dead Redemption (2010), and LA Noire (2011) went on to completely crush every game released during their respective launch windows, publishers have a lot of very good reasons to be antsy around Rockstar releasing any story driven, open world game - much less one from their flagship franchise.

As a matter of fact, there are those who are speculating the real reason 2K Games pushed the mid-October release of BioShock Infinite to February 2013, was because 2K secretly knows that their parent company, Take Two Interactive, intends to publish GTA V in that release window, and the company does not want to risk GTA V cannibalizing any of BioShock Infinite's sells momentum for the remainder of the quarter. GTA V's mid-October release has not even been announced, and it may have already displaced one of 2012 series GOTY contenders. And you better believe that every publisher is already taking notice. COD wish it still had that kind of mojo in the publishing business.

Lol or simply put, anybody who really wants Hitman more then likely isn't touching COD, like me. So release it on the same day as COD, I don't give a crap.

Hey, that trailer was really neat!!

So can I like, preorder get the code and then cancel my preorder?

True, I could have said that. But as gamers, is our hobby really served well by handing out half-assed knowledge? Not trying to offend; not by any measure. But how many times have you gone to a forum, or a blog, or even a legitimate news broadcast, only for the people in control there to get all of their facts completely wrong - perpetuating a complete misunderstanding of games, either as a hobby, as a form of entertainment, as a protected media, or as business industry? Not to even mention the kinds of comments you see below the articles. That kind of lack of understanding, and overall ignorance of the industry has to start somewhere. And adding to the mountain of ignorance, even in our little neck of the woods, only adds to the greater problem.

I live by a pretty simple credo; one that if it ever gained widespread adoptance, could make the internet as a whole, a much better place. And that credo is, that it is never enough to simply tell someone they MAY be incorrect about something. Much better to explain a differing POV in detail, and open up a legitimate dialog between the two perspectives.

I know most people online these days do not like the idea, as it means you actually have to read and pay attention to what someone else said, and engage parts of your brain you'd rather not, before typing them a response. And I can sympathize with that. But as someone who has been online for 30 years (literally, this year), I can tell you without flinching that the way people treated and respected each other online back in the day, was much better than anything it has been in the last decade. It's gotten really bad over the past decade, largely because we have become increasingly lazy with our use of language . . . and the English language in particular is a very poor language to attempt to abbreviate anything in.

In short, it just seems to me that the more we get away from actually using our words to better understand each other, the more we treat each other like shit.

Wow, didn't even know they had pushed to release date, what a bummer.

But as you said GTA V might very well be the one pushing Bioshock aside,
as the GTA launch window and Bioshock getting delayed seems a bit too convenient.


But...what about this then?