Retail Radar: PS3 Oblivion, Stranglehold release date?

In April, as anticipation for the Electronic Entertainment Expo was building up to its annual crescendo, a rumor circulated that the hit Xbox 360 and PC role-playing game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was heading to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable.

The source of the rumors, a poster on the Gaming Age Forums, said the information came from a Bethesda Softworks release schedule that listed both the PS3 and PSP editions of Oblivion and gave a November 6 release date for them. Those rumors are about to get another burst of momentum, as GameStop has updated its retail site with a product page for a PS3 version of Oblivion. GameStop is taking preorders for the game with a very familiar expected shipping date of November 6. Sadly, the retailer's site is still devoid of any mention of Oblivion for the PSP.

In other release-date fun, GameStop has pushed back Stranglehold on its release schedule. At E3, Midway gave the game a "Winter 2006" release, but the online retailer now lists a shipping date of February 15, 2007, for the Xbox 360 version of the game. The same date also graces one of a pair of PS3 product pages for the game. The other PS3 listing gives a November 1 shipping date. Curiously enough, the retailer has no product page for the PC version.

If that delay is true, it seems nobody informed Midway about it. A representative of the publisher told GameSpot today that the company is still aiming for "a fall or holiday 2006" release for Stranglehold on all three platforms.

Please note, while retailer listings frequently jump the gun on publishers' product announcements, they should not be taken as final confirmation of a game's existence, nor should the absence of a listing be considered as proof that a game isn't coming to a given platform.