Amazon to provide game titles on release date

EA's Tiger Woods among first games with release-date delivery

By Danny King -- Video Business, 8/26/2008

AUG. 26 | Amazon.com this week will for the first time deliver games to customers on the same day the titles are available in stores, a move designed to help battle specialty retailers such as GameStop and general merchandise chains including Wal-Mart for share of the rapidly expanding U.S. videogames market.

The world's largest Internet retailer will deliver Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 starting today, the same day retailers will stock the Electronic Arts title on their shelves, Amazon said yesterday. Amazon will offer three other titles with the same service within the next 10 weeks and charges customers $5.98 for guaranteed release-day shipments.

Amazon, which doesn't break out videogame sales, is trying to capitalize on a videogames market that has surged as DVD sales have flattened and music sales have dropped. Through the end of July, videogame software and hardware sales in the U.S. rose 35% from a year earlier to $9.47 billion, according to NPD Group.

"Amazon has always strived to deliver pre-ordered products to our customers as close as possible to the release date, if not on the release date," company spokeswoman Tammy Hovey said. "Customers have been asking for this option."

In addition to Tiger Woods, the company will guarantee release-date delivery for LucasArts' Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on Sept. 16, Microsoft's Fable 2 on Oct. 21 and Microsoft's Gears of War 2 on Nov. 7, Amazon said.

Last week, GameStop, the largest U.S. games retailer, said earnings for its most recently completed quarter more than doubled as sales jumped 35% on record-setting titles such as Take-Two Interactive’s Grand Theft Auto IV.