Frank-ProvoWuh oh — you better be sitting down for this one. (Who surfs the net standing up, anyway?)
Ubisoft just passed along a note announcing that the release date for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell – Chaos Theory has been moved to March 2004. That's bad news for Xbox and PC owners, who hoped to grab the game in November. But it's good news for PS2 owners, because, in the announcement, UbiSoft also revealed that PlayStation 2 and GameCube versions of the game are in development and scheduled to release simultaneously alongside the Xbox and PC versions.
Officially, the company is saying that the reason for the delay is the desire to ship all versions of the game at the same time, so as to give everyone a chance to discover the game simultaneously.
Unofficially, we here at PSX Extreme think that the crowded holiday release schedule, which includes the next installments of Grand Theft Auto, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, and Metal Gear Solid, had something to do with it. Last year, UbiSoft released the critically-acclaimed Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, as well as Beyond Good and Evil, in time for the holiday rush, and both titles sold poorly. The move to March 2004 should allow gamers enough time to digest this holiday season's blockbusters and replenish their wallets in time for the release of the next Splinter Cell.