Boo-hoo. some people played H3 early. Who cares? As long as Microsoft gets thier cash then

Could be a publicity stunt.

Think about it; would Microsoft really ship boxes of H3 to eager retailers with a sticker that says 'Don't open until Halo 3 Day'. Just look at the Harry Potter books that have suffered the same pre-launch sales.

Still, it's just a game that you'll have to buy an Xbox 360 for. Watch H3 be so graphically intensive that it burns out a mess of Xbox consoles.

Actually, being a retailer myself, it is common practice for distributors to ship product to resellers as much as a month before the official release date so that all the retailers can make it available at the same time. This is just common marketing strategy.

In defense of the retailer who goofed, it is possible that he did that because the "sticker" is sometimes not actually on the shipping box itself but, instead, a notation on the invoice. The store owner/general manager may have been aware of the restriction but the person who was stocking the shelves may not have realized it, so the product was put out before it was supposed to be. OOPS!

Now, on the other side of the coin, this could have been intentional on the part of the store operator to try to get some sales before the mad rush and if he were able to get away with it, then he could place a reorder the day of the release, manipulating the numbers to get his product faster and potentially get more copies in the re-order than someone else who did not sell out as soon.

Only the higher-ups at the store in question know whether it was an honest mistake or not but it seems that as long as they corrected the issue, Microsoft is cool with it.

quote

Watch H3 be so graphically intensive that it burns out a mess of Xbox consoles.

Doubt it.

Yeah, they did send halo 3 out to retail stores early so they would be in stock on launch day. I have already beaten Halo 3.
...not to brag or anything... HAHA!

"Watch H3 be so graphically intensive that it burns out a mess of Xbox consoles."

Got a good chuckle out of that one. Thanks Micah.

Seriously, I hope the Wii, PS3, and XBox360 are all successful this generation.

I told myself I would not consider buying an XBox 360 until the ATI GPU is shrunk to 65nm.

ATI is already producing 55nm GPU's for graphics cards. What is Microsoft waiting for already?!!! What's the delay?

Well, there was that issue with people from Sony changing Wikipedia articles about H3 to have them read about how the game sucked. Still, it's just a game. The graphics likely won't improve much. It's the story and game play that people are after. New weapons too I hear.

I think the person would have to be a *bleep* to recieve Halo 3 and stock it and not ask the question... "hmm... I don't believe this should be out yet". I'm betting an employee stocked it and told there friends.