We have received reports from some sources claiming that they were able to purchase Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 prior to the official street date. It seems that this has been primarily reported in the Northeastern U.S. in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

While we have already heard that independent retailers have been guilty of breaking the street date (like 7-11, sub.ed.), this time around it seems that GameStop is also a source of early copies, as well.

Rumors of Activision granting special permission to sell the game early, to help prevent customers from canceling pre-orders if they were able to locate another source selling copies, would appear to be false. Activision is said to fully support the actual street date of November 10th.

As we have discussed in a previous article, breaking the release date for a game is common in order to win the continued support of customers; but it is a practice that is normally engaged in by independent retailers looking for an edge over their local competitors.

If you were lucky enough to get it early, good for you; but it does seem from what we have been able to uncover over the weekend that retailers were breaking the rules to sell you an early copy. We continue to hear that several publishers are engaged in an effort to clamp down on the breaking of street dates, but it would appear that so far it isn’t meeting with much success in the case of this high profile release.