NCAA 2004 goes gold

[Blaise]

I still think it will be interested to see if they "hold" the game for 30days, esp since the turn around time for a game gone gold is normally 2wks, give or take.......they could be using this time to make sure the xbox versions arent messed up like they were last yr, and the ps2 versions the year before.

Either way, i would expect alot of media in the next week, week & a half since it has gone gold.

[ODogg]

And thus work begins on NCAA 2005... heh

As for it releasing early I believe that's because they fear ESPN NFL Primetime presents NFL2K4 by Sega SPorts will come out alot earlier than normal in July and steal its thunder.. Some of you may say apples & oranges but the simple fact is the longer NCAA is out and the ONLY football game that's new the better its sales will be.

GIven that line of reasoning i'm thinking it comes out earlier than 7/17 but not much earlier...like 7/10 or 7/11 or such...

[BIG]

i can aleady taste Steve's first impressions on his beta copy.

[ribbit]

Ok...First of all, manufacturing time is longer than 2 weeks. It's closer to 1 month. PC games can go out in 1-2, depending on the publisher due to the fact that the CD's don't require any sort of copy protection (other than that provided by the developers, and it's entirely optional). Some platforms take longer to manufacture, like GameCube for instance, while others are fairly quick (Microsoft and Sony can both manufacture in a relatively short period of time). Just because it's possible to manufacture within 2-3 weeks there are typically other games waiting to be manufactured. There is a process that has to be followed, though it's entirely possible EA's relationship could expedite that. I won't bother to speculate because I don't claim to know one way or another...

And secondly...Madden and NCAA DO compete with each other, whether you think they do or not. The fact is, they're both football games and not everyone has the $50 to buy both. As proven by past sales numbers, the vast majority of people buy and enjoy the professional game. Just because the vast majority people on this message board are willing to buy two football games, don't assume there are millions out there like yourselves. It just isn't like that (Trust me when I say fansites like this are the vocal minority and nothing more). The total number sales that are generated by people who frequent this site and others like it probably end up being less than 5% of total sales.

[wco81]

Heh, 5% seems high.

I remember in the interviews right after E3, the Madden producer estimated like about another month or month and a half of development left. That could put it a month or 6 weeks before it's targeted 8/11 date.

So maybe 4 weeks, especially for a big production run, is not that unlikely.

It also means that with such a lead time, they'll be able to get it to the big chains on opening day. EB and GS may only get it one day early since they're willing to ship it overnight to their stores.