Activision's quarterly conference call revealed much more than just financial news this time. The changes to the company's release schedule included some bad news for gamers.
Doom 3 will not be released in 2003 and has slipped to Q1, 2004. According to Activision's president, Ron Doornink, for planning purposes, we're assuming Doom III will come out in the fourth quarter. Activision's fourth quarter is the period ending March 2004. With Microsoft's Halo 2 also missing the Christmas season, Q1,2004 is shaping up to be an extremely hot gaming period. Big game retailers in the U.S., like Gamestop, had already begun accepting pre-orders for Doom 3 based on the expected November 15th release date, even though a delay always seemed very likely.
To many this delay will come as confirmation that John Carmack and his team at Id are really making sure that the game becomes available when ready. But others, especially nVidia may be facing hard times until the game hits store shelves. In May nVidia spokesman Brian Burke claimed about the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, When we first designed this architecture, we designed it for 'Doom III.' With the card already available and rival ATI's counter-product, Half-Life 2 expected this fall, this delay may hit nVidia sales, at least until Doom 3 does become available.
With ATI backing H-L 2 and nVidia supporting Doom 3 gamers certainly hope that developers and hardware manufacturers will not deny graphics card owners the full gaming experience based on the make of their boards. Doing that after all would only halve their available market.
