It seems as though two of the most anticipated games of 2009 have now officially been delayed until 2010.
Splinter Cell Conviction and Red Steel 2, despite both of which looking to be in top-top condition at this year’s E3 based on our hands-on time with the games, won’t be making their original 2009 release dates, and have been officially delayed until Q1 2010.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot had this to say about the delays:
“We are disappointed that we have to postpone the release of several major games but we consider that this choice is the best one in the long-term interests of Ubisoft. Lastly, we are having to adjust our full-year targets to take into account the fall in business over the first half. The excellent response to our games at E3, as well as the high buzz generated for titles such as Assassin’s Creed 2, Splinter Cell Conviction and Avatar, reinforce our belief that the company can achieve strong growth in the second half of the fiscal year.”
Mr. Guillemot also explained his reasoning to GoNintendo for why these two games specifically were delayed:
“Red Steel and Splinter Cell are going to greatly benefit from the additional polishing time we are providing and will clearly be among the leading brands on the Wii and 360 for the March quarter. The changes on Splinter Cell and Red Steel – it’s just a question of polish. The team was asking that they couldn’t be with the level of quality on all the maps and all the game for the end of the year, so they had asked for more time to be able to come with a better product, for both of those games. The quality of the games is there for what you’ve been able to see at E3, but we were not able to have that same quality on the full game of those two products. We really think with the level of quality that we’ll be able to obtain with the time we give them we will have a long shelf life for those products. Now, because [Conviction and Red Steel 2] are launching during that quarter, they will not do as many units for the first month as they would have done in November/December, but we think that on the long-term they can achieve more units than what they would’ve done.”
With so many of the other big fall 2009 titles like Bioshock 2, Final Fantasy XIII, Bayonetta, and God of War 3 being delayed, one has to wonder whether or not moving Red Steel and Splinter Cell into 2010 was a good sales move on their part. At this point, it seems only time will tell.
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Both these games look spectacular. Let’s hope they don’t arrive in the little used month of March!