Its true.
Retailers are for whatever reason selling it NOW. Since nearly all are doing it, it must mean that Konami have issued a statement to the companies saying that they are allowed to sell it now.
Either that, or one company broke the relase date (or other companies thought they did), and so as not to lose sales, they broke the release date aswell.
However breaking release dates leaves them in a hot situation with konami. And since so many stores have done it they can easily tell from message boards such as this and pesfan, which stores to check have broken the date, which they could sue. No store company will sell the game early (I mean visibly early) just so some hard core fans can get it.
Most likely the reason why websites still say 27th of october, is because all new games must come out on friday for whatever reason. (in japan for example, there is a law which states that all games dragon quest MUST be relased on a saturday only) so the official release date is still friday. However you can most likely go to your local store and pick one up. Unfortunately from me, I chose to use play.com.