Fifa 14 - 1st versions of the game dumped on the 3rd world?

hello there

those of you who read all about my shopping adventure yesterday (click here to be taken to it) will be aware that i managed to get my hands on a copy of this Fifa 14 business a day early. i have reason to believe that all copies of the game in Africa have been sent off somewhat early.

if you click on that link, you will see (amongst other things) the cover of the PS2 version of the game. here is the link again for ease of use.

in the newspaper today there were some further adverts for the game. so, thanks to the magic of blueberry, here is the PS 3 cover for the game.

and here you go with the cover of the Xbox 360 (or whatever it is called) version of the game.

pretty similar, yeah? all feature Messi in the same pose, all careful to make sure that the name Qatar is not covered up.

right. Fifa 14 became available in the rest of the world today, and so pictures of the boxes have been uploaded all over the net of inter. i have pinched one of the pictures from a friend (if you are reading, many thanks Deb). here it is.

notice something? yes, that's right - Bale is on the cover too, proudly sporting his new Real Madrid shirt, the one he is paid an awful lot of money to wear. presumably, then, the UK (and no doubt Europe) has a more up to date version of Fifa 14 - the one on the shelves here, as per my comments yesterday, has Bale still at Spurs and Ozil still at Real Madrid.

hmn. i think it's fairly obvious what's going on here. Africa was clearly the dumping ground for "first pressings", when neither the artwork nor the game was finished. EA are well known, with the Fifa range in particular, for rushing out games loaded with bugs and errors. what a lovely, easy way to dispose of stock that was wrong, no?

i am guessing that EA just assumed that people in Africa would have no idea what a Gareth Bale is and thus would neither know nor care which team he played for.


for those who got the game, happy playing! although if you are anything like certain people i know (hello Andrew, happy birthday) then you won't be reading this (or emails) anyway, you will be locked in the bedroom playing the game.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!