@poe13: This is all about business. And in that context it's not about "cowardice", is about loosing potential costumers to a product that is more anticipated.
@inebriantia: Xmas is a far bigger market than Summer. Since you need time to make a game they have to choose one and use the other for development. But sure, I would love to have some more releases on summer too.
Not really news. Both when GTAV and Starcraft 2 announced their release dates, a lot of games moved their release dates away from them. There some game with which you just can't compete.
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