French publisher Focus Home Interactive has announced unusual plans for the release of Trackmania United. Several months ahead of its North American release in February 2007, Nadeo's puzzle-cum-racer will be offered as an online purchase and download from 17 November.

The download includes the full game, but if you want a copy you'll have to be quick, because only 10,000 copies will be made available in November. Why the staggered release? Focus says it "will allow fans to get a jump start on developing content to share with the TrackMania United community".

User-created content has been a big part of Trackmania's success, so giving creators a couple of months to crank out new tracks before the wider release makes some sense. But it also opens the door to rampant piracy if impatient gamers can't wait until February. Presumably Focus knows what it's doing.