Summer is upon us, and predictably the release schedules are completely starved of anything. It's the same every year, without fail. Come November, I need 6 jobs just to keep up. Come July, I have to search far and wide for anything exciting on the horizon.

Of course, this usually gives me a chance to catch up on games I really should have finished, or in some cases played, by now. Which is nice, but it still leaves me wondering why it is the case taht every single eyar without fail the games industry puts so many eggs into the Xmas basket.

Here in England, we know that there will be the new Fifa game released at this time. We also know that every cunt in creation is going to buy a copy, since it has topped Xmas sales charts since the very dawn of time itself. So, why then does Konami choose to release Pro Evo at about the same time? Surely it would make more sense to release Pro Evo 6 months later, and have the market to yourself?

Let's take We Love Katamari as a case study. Now, it was released here in the UK on the same day as 2 other notable titles : Shadow of the Colossus, and Psychonauts. None of which one would expect to be a blockbuster, all being original and innovative titles. So, smart move in NOT releasing them in December. However, imagine the poor games buyer like myself, faced with the choice of which one to buy that day? In the end, it was an easy choice, as the only one I saw on the shelf anywhere was SotC. (Which, I still haven't finished!)

There were plenty other titles released the same week, too, but none of which I cared about. I think there was an Incredibles game released at about the same time, which I had no problems finding on store shelves, if I remember right.

Much better, in my mind would be the situation that one of those games was still due to be released, any day now. Probably Psychonauts was released at the wrong time, since it would pick up a lot of extra coverage right about now, that it missed at the time due to everyone being in love with SotC.

But, no, we have to endure an sbolute drought every summer, and an absolute flood every Xmas. And, I'm frigging sick of it! Time and time again it has been shown that a great game will sell WHENEVER it is released. Oblivion could have been released at any time, and it would have outsold everything else that week.

(I still haven't gotten hold of Katamari, because I am somewhat of an old-fashioned "Buy it when I see it in a games shop!" kind of customer. I would much rather hand my cash over the counter than order online and have a package waiting for me when I get home. There is so much less excitement that way. I miss my old local games shop so much, I used to spend hours there. That's what I get, though, for moving across the country to an area that is frankly backwards when it comes to retail!)

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