I live in Asia and the game will be in stock on the 18th of October =))))

rofl they have release date as 3rd october. eat that americans!

but all the other Australian online game shops say 28th october.

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Yeah but they had that date there before ES were ahead of schedule and decided to release it early for the US.

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No that was obviously a mistake and shows how misleading some of the online stores are.

that's on Play.com UK

1) We finish all the bits that go on a CD. This is called "going gold," because the release CDs used to be gold. I think they are red now.
2) Microsoft starts churning out copies of the discs, printing the boxes, and putting them altogether. This is the part we are at right now (as of Sep 25).
3) Boxes of games are shipped out to retailers. This is called release to market. It should happen on or just before Oct 18. On AOM, they actually beat this estimated date by 10 days. I'm told that's not going to happen this time, but we'll see.
4) Retailers get their games and put them up for sale. This is were a lot of variance is introduced. Some companies will get their copies quickly and sell them right away. On AOK and AOM, some retailers had product on shelves before the release to market day. Big box stores might have to send trucks to their big distribution centers first, which could slow them down. They also don't tend to get games as fast as smaller, specialty stores do. This is called "street date." I'll state one more time that this date is quite variable.

We are still releasing around the world on the same date, except for Japan. Japan typically runs a few months later. Whether your retailer is ready to fill orders on Oct 16 or Oct 25 or Nov 10 is really up to them and their distribution model.

When you start to see players post "I got my copy today!" messages, you'll see a lot of variation. Some guys in the same city will have it and others won't. Some countries will get it immediately and others won't.