Why is it that games usually come out on Tuesdays?

[Kane99]

Why is it that games come out on Tuesdays? Same with movies, music and other media? I read that it was for the charts to rank them and such, but I feel like that's a dying thing these days. As well, I notice games are coming out on Thursdays (Nintendo) and some games are coming out on Fridays now. I'm not sure why they do Fridays now. I assume it may be for getting it released for the weekend. 

What do you guys think? I don't see why they still do Tuesdays for release dates. 

[Reality vs Adventure]

I didn't know that. Maybe they have a backdoor agreement with retail to help draw in customers during the week when business is less. Movies don't go through retail so that's why it's always released on weekends when people have more time and get that big opening night for ratings. That's my two cents from this pocket full of pennies. 

[Crazycrab]

It's actually quite simple.  It's partly for chart rankings (as you mentioned) plus they need to avoid the release date dropping on Bank Holidays or weekends when the Stock Market's are closed.

[killamch89]

I'm not quite sure but it once read it had something to do with the stock markets although I can't remember the full details.

[The Blackangel]

I noticed a couple years ago that movies hit the theatre on Fridays and hit the shelves on Tuesdays. It was obvious about Friday. More people go to the theatre on the weekends, so that made sense. As for Tuesdays, that one I don't know the answer to. But with games, I'm sure its the same thing. With them coming out on Fridays people are more likely to buy said game so they can play it over the weekend. Whereas if they buy it during the week, it may have to sit a few days to where the anticipation can wear off, at least a little bit, and they are less likely to recommend the game. If you've never played a game, you can't recommend it with validity. For example, I can't recommend Mass Effect because I've never played it. But I can recommend Zelda II, because I've played the hell out of it.

It's a marketing strategy based on statistics. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Empire]

Big marquee games don’t typically follow that pattern. See, Battlefield 1 and COD: Infinite Warfare.

My guess is that if they release the game on a Tuesday and they have major issues with their online platform that they would then have 3 days to fix the issue before Friday/Saturday when people with 9–5 jobs will do most of their gaming. It is better to have issues on a Tuesday when numbers will be down, instead of spending all weekend trying to fix it and ruining the first full weekend of spectacular gaming marathons.

Since Tuesday is also DVD/Blu-Ray release day, they just have decided to lump games in with movies. Maybe the DVDs and Games are in the same warehouses and on the same shipping schedule. Instead of planning a special truckload for delivery of the games, it just goes on the same warehouse to store delivery truck, which happens to come in on Monday nights for Tuesday release.

[Heatman]

On 11/13/2020 at 1:01 AM, Crazycrab said:

.... on Bank Holidays or weekends when the Stock Market's are closed.

This is 99% most likely the reason why they prefer to release anything that's releasable early in the week than on weekends because it's definitely going to affect the sales.