K-Mart Fined for Breaking Street Date?

Kris Erickson • Oct 27, 2008 • Comments ()

We love it when large retailers break street date on popular games and hardware, but the corporations behind these products? Not so much. Mega retailer K-Mart now faces a heavy fine and other punishment after having sold Fable II to eager fans more than a week early in Australia.

According to K-Mart employees in Australia, the company has been slapped with a $10,000 fine from Microsoft (this is relatively tame, because Microsoft has been known to fine stores at the rate of $1000 per copy sold). Even worse punishment, however, is the fact that K-Mart will reportedly not be allowed to sell Gears of War 2 for the first two weeks of its release. Ouch. No word yet on whether K-Mart will also have to go directly to its room without dinner.

There are several unusual things about this story. First of all, we have never heard of any legal authority that makes it possible for one corporation (Microsoft) to “fine” another company (K-Mart) without taking them to court. Secondly, how would such punishment, if real, be enforced?

The phenomenon of large retailers jumping the gun and selling copies early is a widespread problem that clearly needs to be addressed, but we aren’t sure that corporate “fines” are the best way to achieve this. Recently, retailers around the United States were spotted selling copies of LittleBigPlanet despite a recall imposed on that game, and many Best Buy stores were reported selling PSP-3000 bundles several days before the official launch. There is no word on whether those stores will face punishment from Sony.