Splinter Cell Chaos Theory delayed till '05

Another top-flight game ducked out of the overcrowded holiday 2004 release schedule today. Ubisoft announced that Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, which was scheduled for a November launch on the Xbox and PC, has been pushed back until March 2005.

In addition to the delay, Ubisoft also confirmed that Chaos Theory would be released for the GameCube and PlayStation 2. In fact, the publisher revealed in a statement that the reason for the delay was to allow "players on Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, and PC to discover [the game] at the same time." Ubisoft also mentioned that an additional reason for the delay would be so that Chaos Theory's "quality will be over the top as a result of the additional development time." The N-Gage version of the game was not mentioned.

The Splinter Cell Chaos Theory delay is just the latest round of maneuvering for the Q4 2004 release schedule. Since the season will be dominated by sales of Halo 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Need for Speed Underground 2, and (presumably) Half-Life 2, games such as Resident Evil 4, Far Cry: Instincts, The Matrix Online, and several other high-profile titles have relocated to the less crowded first quarter of 2005. However, other games, most notably Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf, have dived headlong into the holiday retail fray.

For more on Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, check out GameSpot's recent hands-on preview of the game.