After last week's report of Haze being on track for a December release, we're now prompted to point out the rather abrupt appearance of a detour in-between the metaphorical train and its final stop at the PlayStation 3. It seems the designers at Free Radical didn't receive nearly enough coal to reach the lead platform in time for Christmas, and now hope that you'll conduct your purchase of their first-person shooter in the first quarter of 2008.

Thankfully devoid of increasingly insufferable train puns, a Gamasutra article details the delay mentioned within Ubisoft's favorable first-half financial results. Sales for le publisher rose by 52% to $372.86 million, with profits jumping up 12% to $44.8 million. You might consider the money already spent on Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2, expected to arrive in the same quarter as Haze. Not much is known about the sequel, save that it'll (probably) feature soldier-types shooting up evil, one-armed bandits.

Fellow Tom Clancy property, Splinter Cell: Conviction continues to be wishy-washy about a potential release date, as it's also been pushed back to Ubisoft's fiscal year 2008-2009.

Booth suggests that PS3 games are often disadvantaged when ported, as developers have to jump through extra hoops in order to get Sony's system to do what the Xbox 360 can with more ease and less time. It's a fair observation from an insider, certainly, but hardly the blast of searing truth meant to burn away our many "misconceptions." With developers expressing discontent, PS3 publishers being sweet-talked and games stumbling over multiple, noted delays, it's been fairly obvious that the system has been getting a raw deal due to its technical composition and accompanying challenges.

It's bad news for the struggling PS3, but it's also not an unusual situation to arise during multiplatform development. When a developer chooses to develop the same game across different sets of technology, compromises and hardships are likely to rear their hideous, misshapen heads. If you don't think it's all business as usual though, feel free to read all the technical nitty-gritty yourself and respond with an eloquent comment (example: "what would you know about it? all of harmoniax games looks like shit").

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

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.

So, there's good news and there's bad news, die hard fans of Destroy All Humans. (Yes, we're talking to both of you.) First off, as previously rumored, a third Destroy All Humans subtitled Path of the Furon is in the works for the PS3 and the Xbox 360. The bad news? Well, it's just been delayed from the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2008 until FY 2009, meaning you can expect it between April 1, 2008 and March 31, 2009.

The news came from a fiscal outlook from THQ, in which Frontlines: Fuel of War on PS3 and de Blob for the Wii were also moved into 2009. In completely unrelated news from the same release, Stuntman: Ignition and Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights are performing worse than THQ expected, despite their impossibly sexy titles.

[Update: A THQ staffer wrote us and said that Destroy All Humans: Path of the Furon will actually be coming in FY 2008, but the profits will be realized in FY 2009.]

[Via TeamXbox]

Which, if we're reading 1UP's interview with executive producer Alan Tuscan correctly, is to "add the polish." They must be having a devil of a time finding a translator, eh?

But seriously, folks, Army of Two has been delayed until the first quarter of 2008. While those looking forward to the co-op macho men antics of the high-profile shooter will restrain their bitter tears until they're alone, EA's November bail-out is probably for the best. "This is an important new IP for us and we don't want to spoil it," says Tuscan, displaying full awareness of the competition found in Halo 3 and even Gears of War. "Are they setting the bar at a certain level? Sure. But that's the bar we're hitting anyway -- it's the bar we were aiming for even before seeing these games."

Though it sounds like a slight against the game, it's clear that nobody is going to miss Army of Two in a holiday brimming with a ludicrous number of $60 epics, least of all an unpolished version of it. Let's hope a few more publishers realize the calendar goes on after you page past the holiday months.

[Thanks, Corey]

If you're a PC gamer looking to fill the gap in your soul until Starcraft 2's release in Who Honestly Knows of 200?, you might be disappointed to hear that sci-fi RTS Universe at War: Earth Assault has been delayed from November into January 2008. The delay does come with a silver lining though. The game supports cross-platform play between 360 and PC, and this delay puts the two releases closer together. Maybe this means 360 players won't be beaten as badly by their PC counterparts.

Also, the delay means a few more months of peace for the universe, and isn't that what we're all really working for? Of course it is.

Guy with two guns epic Stranglehold is still struggling to get a grip on the PS3 and PC, with both versions facing delays just as the Xbox 360 version sees completion. Inspector Tequila's seething vendetta against neatly stacked grocery stands begins on the Xbox 360 September 5th (September 14th in Europe), with the PC version now following on September 18th in the US and the 21st in Europe.

Shacknews reports that the PS3 version of the bullet bonanza is now scheduled for release on September 25th, which translates to an imprecise "October" for Europe.

Have all the game delays got you down? Put a relaxing cap on your Tuesday workday by watching Joystiq's own Kevin Kelly explain why Uncle Niko won't be able to visit this Halloween, why Blacksite might be here for Thanksgiving and why nothing short of a Christmas miracle will get Spore out the door before the end of linear time, generally speaking.

If you're still not cheered, you can thrill as Kelly storms into the G4 studios and beats the intellectual bejeezus out of Rebecca Swanner, Senior Videogames Editor for Penthouse Magazine! ... And by "beats the intellectual bejeezus out of" we mean "politely disagrees with." Sorry for any confusion. Check the small-ish video out after the jump.

Too Human to outside observers is slowly becoming the Duke Nukem Forever of the Xbox 360. After making a -- oh, how to put it kindly -- laggy presentation at the last E3, it went MIA for X06 and *poof* Too Human was gone.

Now Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack has allegedly made a statement following a heated NeoGAF thread about another Too Human delay. Dyack says, "I am sorry to see not much has changed here on the GAF. There should be no question as to why many developers do not post here. Thanks to those who were positive and made some logical comments ... In time these comments will be bearers of fruit. Unfortunately for many here, they are going to be very bitter."

At this point nobody has any idea when this game will come out. It could be Q4 2007 or sometime in 2008. Rumor has it that we'll get another chance to see Too Human at Min-E3. As long as it doesn't chug at 25 frames per second, it'll be a vast improvement over last E3.

[via CVG]

If internet reports are to be believed, Frame City Killer has been cancelled, with an unnamed RPG replacing it in Bandai-Namco's roster of upcoming games.

We knew that FCK (as it's affectionately known in the gaming community) was having some problems -- with multiple delays stemming from poor graphics and inadequate content -- but most 360 owners expected the game to come out one way or another sometime later this year.

If you're a member of the Frame City Underground (the official fan community for the game), a pretty clear announcement in English has already been made. Check out the full text below. FCK ... we'll miss you.

[Thanks, murph, Blue_Six, & a tipster who'd like to remain anonymous; via Evil Avatar & GameFront]

See also:

• Original Japanese announcement page; Google auto-translation
• Frame City Killer missing until summer at the very least
• Namco responds to criticism, sends Frame City Killer back to the lab
• Frame City Underground official announcement (must log in for it)

While everyone's still reeling from the PS3 price announcement, UK gamers who want some shiny new Sony hardware before the PS3 launches are in luck. Sony has announced that the Ceramic White PSP will finally be released in Europe next Monday (May 15), with an expected retail price of £179.99 in the UK (€249).

As of June there will also be a range of Platinum UMDs, with titles like Everybody's Golf available for £19.99 (€24.99). As if that's not enough, a range of Lonely Planet-produced city guides, to be called Planet PSP, will arrive this autumn; also, in the near future we'll see PlayStation Spot appearing in Europe.

The European release of Animal Crossing: Wild World later this week heralds joy for many DS owners this side of the pond. Europeans have patiently waited for the game for months, since its release in other countries; however, a long delay on European Nintendo titles is the norm, rather than the exception.

A disgruntled European Nintendo fan has set up a site called "NoE Watch" to highlight some of these problems, including a Hall of Fame and Hall of Shame for particularly good and bad release schedules. Looking at these lists, it's not all bad--titles like Another Code (Trace Memory) actually arrived in Europe before they made it to America. Perhaps European customers are too willing to focus on the bad side of these delays.

The problem isn't Nintendo-specific; from delays of days to months, European customers have come to expect games later than their American friends, but the advent of online friends lists and the like mean that the difference is all too apparent.

The North American launch of the Playstation 3 could slip to 2007 if the Merrill Lynch report we blogged about earlier is to be believed. The report states that as a result of Sony's design choices the PS3 is an "expensive and difficult to manufacture product" which could have the consequence of delaying the launch until next year. The components that seem to be causing the most trouble are the Cell processor and the Blu-Ray drive.

The Cell processor is a very complex chip which means it'll be a difficult and expensive part to manufacture. Processors are often a reason for delays in the computer industry (3GHz G5 PowerMac anyone?) so it's possible the Cell could be a factor in any potential slippages for the PS3. The second problem is Blu-Ray. The standard is so new that no-one is making the drives, resulting in another expensive component. The inference is that Sony might delay the PS3 until Blu-Ray is a more established format in order to reduce their losses.

What we've got here is a waiting game. The longer Sony waits to launch the PS3, the less money it'll lose on its consoles. However, as long as the PS3 remains off the market Sony runs the risk of losing out to its competitors.

[Image credit: Dave Simmer II's blogography. Via news.com. Thanks, Dave Zatz]