Though she's on her way out, Nintendo's VP of marketing Perrin Kaplan still finds some time to speak to MTV's Stephen Totilo regarding all things Nintendo. As history has repeatedly shown us, one of those things inevitably turns out to be the dreaded delay -- though perhaps it's not as dreaded when it comes to the holiday months. It seems Nintendo now joins EA and Capcom in seeing the sales sense in slippage.

"And I think we're actually starting to look at the annual calendar differently," said Kaplan, justifying the February release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. "The first two quarters of the year tend to be more quiet. But now we've seen some evidence of sales in that period." Avoiding the jostling of the year-end crowd is but one benefit, with the added development time yielding a game that's "absolutely as perfect as Japan knows it can be." Kaplan, who views the Wii and DS as being a little more integrated into people's (boring) lives, concludes via basketball metaphor that timing isn't necessarily everything. "I think a really good product can be a slam dunk any time of the year."

A note of caution to other publishers considering delays: Let's not get carried away now. We don't want February becoming the new November.