14 DAY TRIAL // By far two of the biggest pieces of news this week were the delays of Watch Dogs and Driveclub, two highly anticipated games that were supposed to appear in November.
While games get postponed almost all the time in the gaming industry, both in the case of Watch Dogs and Driveclub, the delays were made quite close to their actual release dates, after Ubisoft and Sony, respectively, invested a lot of money in marketing and hype.
In the case of Watch Dogs, Ubisoft emphasized the desire to add more polish to the open world game and to make sure that it, a brand new intellectual property with no history in the industry, had plenty of breathing room when it launched.
This is probably for the best, as the game would have needed to fight for the attention of customers in between big sequels, like Ubisoft's own Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, and with titles exclusive to next-gen consoles, like Killzone: Shadow Fall or Dead Rising 3.
Speaking of exclusives, Sony lost an important title for its PlayStation 4, as it had to postpone the launch of Driveclub, the new racing title from Evolution Studios.
Driveclub was quite important in two ways. First, it offered a direct competitor to the Xbox One's Forza Motorsport 5, seeing as how Sony's Polyphony Digital team would only launch Gran Turismo 6 on PS3, at least at first.
Secondly, many potential PS4 owners were more than happy to make PlayStation Plus subscriptions in order to get lots of features and a free version of Driveclub for their next-gen console.
While Sony is offering a new free title instead of the racing game, in the form of Contrast, it's clear that the PS4 suffered a major blow ahead of its launch.
Both delays, while unfortunate, show that companies need to make better predictions in terms of completing work in an accurate schedule. They should also have realistic expectations about the crowded nature of a potential release schedule.
Between Watch Dogs and Driveclub, which delay hurt the most for you? Share your thoughts in a comment below.