Riding on the heels of 2K's recent delays of BioShock 2 and a number of other big holiday titles, Ubisoft has announced that Splinter Cell: Conviction and Red Steel 2 are being pushed to Q1 2010, falling in-between June and March. I Am Alive and Ghost Recon are also being pushed around, and will likely not see release until at least April of 2010. No reason was given for the delay (Ubisoft's recent announcement of a 50% drop in sales might be an indicator) besides a non-statement by CEO Yves Guillemot:

"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."

In other words, "We don't want to talk about it."

Later this week we're meeting with Ubisoft to play some of the games in question at a "Holiday Line-up Show." Hopefully we'll be able to dig a little deeper and find out why the games were delayed without them dodging the question and mumbling about "polish."

The holiday line-up is thinning dramatically as the days go by. Publishers continue to flee from games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3: Recon, forgetting that there's a market for new IPs and games outside of the FPS market. If this trend continues, we'll soon be out of things to dump our wallets onto before the winter, and that's something that's hard to get used to.