[quote name='Zippon']Not in every case though, right? For example, when toys are street dated to coincide with a movie release (or to prevent spoilers). Like the Star Wars prequels. Stores had that stock for months ahead of time but held it for PR reasons.
I assume it's actually the same with the Move. It's not so much about being fair to the individual stores as it is Sony wanting to making a big splash on release day. If the Move dribbles out regionally ahead of time, it steals their thunder.[/QUOTE]
Toys are a bit different, due to the fact that they usually involve multiple vendors and they are more manufactured products that have longer production lead times. But just like games or DVDs, producers have no interest in pissing off a major retailer by appearing to favor one of them vs another in terms of distribution...and someone's order has to be filled first...so a firm street date allows the orders to pushed out in such a fashion that all the retailers (or at least the major ones....I doubt they care about mom and pops) roughly all have a fair shot at selling the item to customers on day one.
But that said, this is only a major issue for retailers if they believe there is significant pent up demand for an item that retailer A selling it early would distort demand away from retailers B, C and D (such as if walmart started selling Halo Reach today nationwide in their stores). If demand isn't very high, retailers aren't going to super pissed about a few random stores breaking the street date. Also as an accessory, Sony isn't looking at Move as "sales are all downhill after the first week" like it is for most games. Move is going to be sold over the long term, so while Sony has a interest to get the word out about Move's launch, the launch is just step one is a very long sales and marketing effort.