Hi Ryan,
Not quite on the subject but this was put together last week ..
http://forum.x-cart.com/viewtopic.php?t=1418&highlight=
Is the release date an extra field?
If it is and you are wanting to compare it you can dissect parts of the string using PHP on the basis
$day = substr($your_field,0,2) where the 0 is the start point (the first position is always 0 not 1) in the string and the 2 is the length.
Therefore:
$month=substr($your_field,3,2)
and
$year=substr($your_field,5,4)