Hey all, I’m back with a look at a specific time of year for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. It’s all about the Holiday Rush.

Holiday Rush? The holiday release schedule has always been jam-packed in the game industry, with titles like Call of Duty regularly releasing a brand-new game in the final quarter of the year. This year, as of this current writing, it looks to be especially jam packed with titles like Metroid Prime 4, Call of Duty, and maybe Grand Theft Auto VI being some of the most notable releases. (It is said that GTA VI is going to slip until 2026.)

Why do it in this quarter of the year specifically? For multiple reasons, but mostly it comes down to titles that release in this quarter tend to sell extremely well which is why we have a yearly Call of Duty release. Games being bought as a present for the holidays (for yourself or others) are a major boost to their sales.

Really? Yes, in fact game release schedules are really important and having a poorly timed release can really affect them in bad ways. The Horizon series on the PlayStation, one of the better written series released in the past decade in my opinion, suffered because it had releases in the same general time frame as two other massively successful titles.

Horizon Zero Dawn released around the time of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and was overshadowed by it massively, which is a shame in my opinion as both were excellent games.

Meanwhile, Horizon Forbidden West released shortly after Elden Ring, which was also a massive success. Even the DLC expansion Burning Shores was overshadowed by The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Hogwarts Legacy. This was seriously bad luck on Horizon series developer Guerrilla Games part. Hopefully their next entry won’t be so unlucky.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.