You’d think they’d learn. As we discussed recently around the Fallout 3 release, Amazon has recently started offering Release Date Shipping for some hot items. With one notable exception that we’ll get to in a moment, however, that special shipping does not apply to things you may have pre-ordered months ago. The upshot is that people who pre-order things two days before release are getting it on Day One, and you’re stuck holding no box, because it won’t arrive for two days.



The notable exception is World of Warcraft:Wrath of the Lich King. Amazon realized that they had about seventy gajillion pre-orders for this one and automatically upgraded everyone who pre-ordered the game or its Collector’s Edition to Release Date Shipping. Even though I had a regular copy on November 12 from another source, I can say that my CE did arrive on Thursday afternoon as promised.



I can’t say the same for Mirror’s Edge, which, despite being pre-ordered about five seconds after PAX, did not arrive until Thursday. (Note: it is a miracle we’ve had time to look at this one with Lich King out, but check out the Weiner review of Mirror’s Edge tomorrow.)



But wait, there’s more! Our pre-order of the Pixar Blu-Ray of WALL-E arrived about an hour ago. Yes, on Sunday. Two days before its November 18 release date.



What the heck is going on over there? It’s a big company, sure, but a little consistency goes a long way, especially as the holidays approach. Here’s hoping that Amazon gets this all ironed out well in advance of the new year.