Oblivion Delayed Till Next Year Options

[Kaleem]

Oblivion Delayed Till Year February - April 2006
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/663/663056p1.html

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6136973.html

Sorry.

This post has been edited by Kaleem: Nov 1 2005, 03:07 PM

[Rendelius]

Let me jump right in here and tell you what I know (it's not a lot more than you do, though):

My personal opinion from all evidence I have seen is that, if the game is deleayed, it will be delayed worldwide and released worldwide. I see a slight, but really slight chance that in this case the PC version might be out sooner, but I have to admit that the evidence speaking for it is much slimmer than the evidence speaking against it. It could be out earlier if the problems that led to the alledged delay are Xbox related (framerates), but as they are actively seeking for more intern QA people since October 25th, I think the problems might be more general.

Do I think that the announced delay will be true? Yes. The only thing that bothers me is the silence on Bethesda's side. Nobody really can tell why it is the way it is - for legal reasons, something very trivial? No idea.

Funny thing is that material facts point to a delay: the lack of recent videos or screenshots, the lack of information lately and so on. Their words, however, point to a timely release: 99% done, tweaking and testing since summer, still on track...

For someone outside, it's really hard to tell what is true, what is wrong, what is wishful thinking on ones own side. Even the mail I received from Pete Hines after we published the T2 statement on RPGDot (I asked Pete to comment and correct the newsbit if necessary, and told him that we usually would quote the release date from Bethesda's site, but a statement from their co-publisher, especially in a financial report, had some weight for us) wasn't helpful in clarifying the situation. I don't quote PM's I receive for obvious reasons, but the general tone was that he considered something from T2's financial report as newsworthy as well, and that there would be a statement of some sort from Bethesda soon, but not at the time given.

If I had to speculate, I would consider a disagreement between Bethesda and T2 over the actual timeframe for the release a possibility, but without any proof for that speculation. It could well be that Bethesda needs some more time to finish the game, but not as much as T2 reported. It could be that T2 surprised Bethesda with the release date they announced, at least this COULD be a reason why Bethesda didn't act until now. On the other hand, they are not really known to be fast with news and actually are happy that they didn't have to announce the delay themselves. I just don't know, I am just telling you what I think might have happened.

On the official forums, a moderator stated that we could probably expect a reaction from Bethesda before the 7th of November - and I do not know the significance of that date for a statement. Could be that this is the last day before they have to submit Oblivion to the QA of Microsoft to be a day one release title, could be that there is a contract of some kind that doesn't allow them to announce something before the 7th - no idea. I just wanted to show that there are many unexplained components to this matter, and all we can do in the situation now is maing more or less educated guesses.

You can be sure that we will monitor this development closely at RPGDot, and if there is something to report that is more than just a rumor (that means we can confirm the story from at least one other independent and reliable source), it will be posted in our news as soon as possible.

Thanks for taking the time reading this :-)