I track videogame release dates for all the major consoles and the PC.  I used to do it as a budget-minded consumer so I would know what months I needed to start stockpiling the Ramen, but now it's part of my job.  Actually, it used to be part of a different job long ago when I was working at an EB Games, and that's when I first noticed the trend of fake release dates.  You see, in order for retailers to presell games, they have to be able to tell you when they are coming out.  They have to have this nebulous release date to hold out there for you to justify the fact that you are giving them money but getting nothing back (at least for now).  Game distributors like to track presell trends in order to see how much interest there is in a particular title so they give the retailers these dates the facilitate the presell process.  In order to get this date the distributors pressure the developers to either come up with a realistic date or they just demand that the game get released in whatever state it's in on a specified date.  This is how you get games that are released broken, and as downloadable content becomes a bigger part of console games, you can bet that more and more console games will become like PC games.  What I mean by that is that they will be released in a late beta or alpha state and then patched weeks later.  This has been a staple of PC gaming for years, but I welcome all you console gamers to our world.

When I look at the release date calendar, the fake dates start to stand out.  For instance, any release date for "Team Fortress 2" is fake.  I've actually been tracking that release date for almost ten years now.  When I first started tracking it, TF2 was built with the revolutionary "Quake 2" engine.  The same goes for "Duke Nukem Forever".  Any date out there is fake.  Other dates you can usually count on being fake are anything that is the first day of the year, the last day of the year, or the first day of any month.  You can also expect any release date that is more than about three months away to slip.  I see the release dates for "Stranglehold" and "Heavenly Sword" are both August 1st.  10 to 1 you won't see those games on that day.  There's a chance they could make that date, but more than likely, it's just a goal they are trying to hit.  Just keep all this in mind when you're checking those release dates and remember that none of them are set in stone.  Here's a quick list of the games I suspect have fake release dates as of now.

• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii) - 6-1
• Super Smash Bros: Brawl (Wii) - 6-1
• Stranglehold (PS3, 360, PC) - 8-1
• Heavenly Sword (PS3) - 8-1
• Indiana Jones (PS3, 360) - 9-1
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3) - 9-1
• Army of Two (PS3, 360) - 11-1
• Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 11-1
• Halo 3 (360) - 11-1
• Rock Band (PS3, 360) - 11-1
• Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) - 12-1
• Gran Turismo HD (PS3) - 12-1
• Final Fantasy Versus XIII (PS3) - 12-31
• Alan Wake (360, PC) 12-31
• Halo Wars (360) 12-31
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PS3, 360) - 2-1-2008