No, no, no, don't cry, Sam! Oh, now look, you've ruined your mascara. It appears emo Sam Fisher is going to be sitting on the sidelines a little longer as Ubisoft announced today that Splinter Cell: Conviction is being delayed until the company's next fiscal year. For those who don't tell time through corporate fiscal calendars, that means Conviction won't be released until after April of 2009.

Rumors of Conviction's delay have been floating around for months, kicked into overdrive by the game's no-show at Ubidays and E3. Back in May, the development team said it would be showing the game in "forthcoming months." Well, there's still Tokyo and Leipzig ...

The Sarcastic Gamer gang has been slipped another round of supposedly "inside" info regarding the rumored nixing of actor Michael Ironside as the voice of Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher. Rather than simply more "he's gone" talk, this time there are actual (rumored) details concerning the (also rumored) split, which comes during what has been a turbulent development process for Splinter Cell: Conviction.

According to the latest hubbub, Ironside was given the boot for being generally difficult to work with ... and asking for more compensation than publisher Ubisoft deemed sufficient for his work. Bear in mind that Ubisoft still hasn't commented on the situation, so all of this is just as plausibly deniable as one of agent Fisher's missions.

[Via X3F]

There's an enormous void in our brains where Splinter Cell: Conviction should be. It wasn't long ago that the Xbox 360-exclusive spy simulator used to occupy a significant chunk of the quadrant reserved for games being released in 2007 but, after several increasingly vague reports – not to mention the game's total absence at the recent Ubidays event – we're having a hard time remembering it ... this was the one where Sam Fisher goes totally emo, right?

Well, he was totally emo last time we saw him but who knows what state the game's gravelly voiced protagonist is in now. If a rumor on Sarcastic Gamer is to be believed, the hero's distinctive voice – heretofore provided by star of stage and screen and Scanners, Michael "Ironside" Ironside – may be replaced for this latest version with who the hell knows. We've put our feelers out but, as long as we've got you all here, let's do some brainstorming. We all realize David Hayter will be missing those Solid Snake checks pretty soon and, assuming this rumor is true for just 7 seconds, Ubisoft may need a leading man('s voice) pretty soon. David, Ubisoft. Ubisoft, David. Imagine it:

Sam! SAM! SAAAAMMMMMMM!

(Cue The Incredible Hulk "Lonely Man" theme after the break) According to CVG, the latest issue of Xbox World 360 states that Splinter Cell Conviction is going dark until late 2009 or Spring 2010. The magazine speculates Conviction was sent back to the drawing board after games like Ubisoft's own Assassin's Creed made it seem outdated.

Ubisoft's response to the story has been to pull a "no comment" and say that the news piece is pure speculation. Videogaming 247 states the last press release about the title (from last Summer) had Conviction hitting retail in late 2007. Some answers on Conviction's fate may be revealed at Ubisoft's UbiDays event in Paris next week

Read -- Splinter Cell Conviction 'back to drawing board'
Read -- Ubisoft refuses comment