14 DAY TRIAL // The video game industry, like most that rely on direct sales to consumers, is heavily focused on the calendar year, meaning developers and publishers will try and release their biggest titles right around the winter holiday season, targeting months like October or November.
This usually results in some really crowded release schedules, with multiple blockbuster, triple-A titles appearing on store shelves on the same day.
As you can imagine, there's only so much money to go around, so some game developers that aren't exactly confident in their title's ability to duke it out with yearly franchises like Call of Duty, Battlefield, or Need for Speed, opt to push them back towards the beginning of the next year.
Seeing as how most consumers don't have that much money left after the winter holidays, most big games won't appear right after the new year, in January for example. Instead, companies start targeting later months, such as February and March. Another big reason for this is that publishers usually end their fiscal years on March 31, so a big release right before that might give their financial figures a boost.
This train of thought isn't uncommon, so now the month of March looks just like a crowded October or November.
Things already kicked off in the last few weeks with big releases like Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Thief or Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, and are set to continue in a big way in the next few ones.
Next week, for example, on March 11 in North America and March 14 in Europe, two absolutely massive titles will make their debut: Titanfall, from Respawn Entertainment and EA, and Dark Souls 2, from Bandai Namco and From Software.
Things aren't stopping there, as the publishers and developers are continuing their steady stream of new blockbuster titles. Konami is first with Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, which launches on March 18 in North America and March 20, in Europe, for a big amount of platforms like PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, or Xbox One.
Sony is also finally bringing a new exclusive title to the PS4, in the form of the eagerly awaited Infamous: Second Son, which is one of the few games with a global release date of March 21.
Besides giving you a chance to buy all-new games, developers and publishers are also targeting existing game owners with all-new downloadable content. BioShock Infinite will get the second chapter in the Burial at Sea expansion on March 25 for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, while Diablo 3 will get the Reaper of Souls add-on on the same day for the PC and Mac platforms.
If you're a gamer, the onslaught on your free time and spare money has already begun so, in case you haven't got enough cash to go around, pick and choose what to invest in right now and what to postpone until a later point in time.
Don't forget, however, that April and May are also set to see quite a few different triple-A titles appear, from Watch Dogs, to Dying Light, Mad Max, and many more. As such, prepare to drastically increase your game library no matter the platform(s) on which you game.