Hope Activision come down on them like a pile of bricks. "Caring for the customer spin" should not get them out of this. Any irresponsible retailer can flog them for £70 on ebay right now. 95% of first class orders arrive next day. Online retailers should therefore only be allowed to release stock the day before. The Hut/Shopto use this early release as a USP and it is a very attractive USP from a gamers perspective. Extremely unfair to those who abide by the rules.

£70 - good idea!! < places order at The Hut>

I'm always a bit plit in these situations - obviously I'd like the game early, but at the same time I'd like it cheap. So it's a decision between pre-ordering and waiting for the supermarkets to go cheap. Ive done the latter this time. £29 at Asda and Sainsbury's i hear...

It's not The Hut's fault by the sounds of it. Royal Mail are a mess at the moment. I've only just received a birthday card, two weeks too late.

I have just heard from a reliable inside source CODMW 2 will be 34.71 In ASDA, Wish they would just stop ruining the games idustry.

Although i think this is probably something that will annoy those retailers who do hold off sales until the release date i would think the issue of piracy should be the larger concern since i would consider that more important due to lost revenue. I would be left unsurprised if nothing is done about breaking the street date even after the outcry for sanctions against those that do it that occured a year or so ago now.
Id also say that the statements made by some of the other retailers about staff not taking the game home for themselves or family or friends may be the standpoint they claim to take but from what i've read on other forums and sites are not being held to.

I have just heard from a reliable inside source CODMW 2 will be 34.71 In ASDA, Wish they would just stop ruining the games industry giving the customers what they want, rather than rip-off indies.

Just about any game I order from the likes of Gameplay gets here 2 days early, on the wednesday. This is only an issue because it's MW2 and the games out at midnight sunday, so the weekend is in the way.

The headline should read "Retailer takes steps to get items customer has paid for (the whole reason we are in business though sometimes we forget when we call for price fixing) to them on time"

The Hut has really created a big problem for themselves shipping early. Companies like Game, Shopto, Play have spent a lot of money to upgrade to courier for Free of charge to make customers happy to receive theirs on release date and most importantly to not break the release date.

I can understand that The hut is a small entity and could not afford to upgrade to courier but this is showing that they do not care about publishers and they will never do!

Clever move Hut, now ATVI know you bought grey (CS orders have not shipped yet) and you broke street date as well. Hope you didn't ever want a direct account. Also hear Tesco are furious as they have been dragged into this by proxy. Massive fail.

So now does anyone know what will happen to the hut?
My guess - bugger all. Lets hope that these street date contracts are actually worth us all signing otherwise this is a TOTAL waste of our time.

Nothing will happen to them overtly. Covertly though they will be treated with extreme prejudice. Doesn't help your bottom line now but in the long run theirs will suffer too.

As is best revenge will be served cold and in private.

Surprisingly THE slowest shipper of them all has managed to break a street date. Amazing. Does this mean that Zavvi, Senditnow, Tesco, Asda and TheHut orders have been fulfilled early?...

Punishment will be slower/later shipping, less availability for restocks and withdrawl of marketing funding.

All those online indies that ship Royal Mail don't get the choice to ship early to avoid strike action. They would literally have been bollox'd if the strike went ahead as they aren't getting the games until Monday (which would have been a strike day) so they wouldn't have arrived until midweek with customers; so well done to Royal Mail calling that off!

Show me one retailer that has never ever broken street date in some form (even selling early to a mate or mass public) and I will show you a liar.

Get real folks, the industry is screwed any way.

Only way round street date is Kottick (feel free to substitute name here with any other CEO of publisher) having a switch like the nuclear switch that turns on Total Global Download simultaneously.

Now that would be industry power!

@ Jamied , The Hut Group are not some small retailer, not sure where you got that idea.

The Hut are on a mission this year to conquer just about every market they're in. It would not surprise me if this was intentional, this sort of publicity is priceless.

The Hut may "be on a mission" but looking at "traffic" on alexa.com the small amount of "traffic" would give a better indication of their current market position and speaking with suppliers, orders from the Hut are small quantities, this indicates their mission may be an impossible one and the above comments confirm they have shipped stock that is not from official sources, they do not have a direct account with most publishers (including Activision) as the ordered quantities are so low.

As I understand it, the DVD version of the game needs to be unlocked via Steam, and that's not happening until the 10th, so no-one will be playing the game early, they just get to install it and read the manual. (Woop-de-frickin'-doo!)

Btw Play.com dispatched my copy on the 5th, but I've not received it yet. Which suggests there's a fair chance it *is* going by Royal Mail now, since the strike was cancelled.

The Hut's own website may not get the most traffic on its own but the company also runs white label sites for some of the best known names in the business...Tesco, Zavvi, WH Smith, etc. Overall they are a large, growing concern with an increasing market share.

i got my one on friday sent from Asda on thursday. when i was online there was over 25000 people playing!