The cranky hermit (2926) on 12/31/2018 2:47 AM · Permalink · Report

I stumbled across scans from 1981-1989 of Computer Entertainer magazine, and each issue has a pretty comprehensive list of upcoming US release dates. So many games in Mobygames have years but not months. Could this be a good resource for more precise release dates?

For example, in the January 1984 issue, Boulder Dash is listed as having Atari & C64 releases on February. The February issue says the same. The March issue, which almost certainly was published in February, says the same, and reviews the Atari version. The releases section of the April issue does not list the Atari version (presumably because it's been released), but the C64 version is pushed back, and subsequent issues push it back further, until the August issue lists it as an August release and also reviews it.

From this, I can conclude the Atari version was released in February 1984, and the C64 version in August 1984. Following a similar thread, I can also see that the Apple II version was released in October, and the ColecoVision version in December. Oddly though, there's no mention of Boulder Dash for PC, though the 1985 issues do show release dates for Super Bounder Dash for PC (a July 1986 release using this methodology).

Does this methodology seem sound for adding more precise release dates to Mobygames?