Waiting

Sometimes I wonder why I pay attention to release calendars. I almost NEVER buy games new; I think I've purchased a total of 10 new 360 games out of a total of 32. Three of them I bought with the system, and two were purchased new because weirdly enough they happened to end up in the discount bin way ahead of the used price fall-off. The remaining five I bought new specifically to give the developers money for a fantastic product so that they could make more. Given that, why bother to read release calendars? There's no way I'll have the game on that anticipated day. I suppose there's the thought in the back of my mind that someone will buy it, beat it, and then get rid of it quickly, but even when that happens I generally put it off until it drops a bit. My sweet spot is around $30 - a very nice price for a 360 game - and it can take a little time for them to drop to that point. I guess it comes down to wanting it to be available just in case I end up buying it ahead of my normal schedule.

Anyway, skimming the calendar regularly can yield some funny tidbits. The current 360 release list on IGN has an entry waaaaaaaaay down at the bottom - Mass Effect 3, TBD 2011. While it's nice to know they're planning a third entry in the series, it's probably jumping the gun just a bit to announce a sequel to a sequel that's at least a year off in of itself. Still, cool. There's also an entry for Blue Dragon 2, which is a nice discovery. A friend and I both hoped there would be another one, we just can't get enough of strictly turn-based JRPGs...unfortunately a rapidly disappearing genre.