The only huge titles that are coming out this year now appear to be Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Brutal Legend, and (Oh, dear Lord, please still hit your fall release date) Heavy Rain. The rest of the publishers have shot their games all the way to the beginning of next year. Away from the holidays, when people will want to buy games. What the hell? I mean, I can understand being afraid of The Goddamned Batman (TM), but Call of Duty's never scared away the likes of Blizzard, 2K Games and other massive game houses before! They think this will help them sell? Their sales will plummet, and there's no telling what will happen then...

I guess I am. Though I haven't heard much about Borderlands that makes it sound like an appealing title. I played Hellgate; London, and the way they describe Borderlands makes the two sound like twins.

Borderlands looks a lot like Hellgate and will probably draw more influence from other games (since Hellgate obviously bombed... A shame since it had so much potential). I'm not expecting an amazing game but it should be a Hellgate type game done right.

Well with any luck when these big titles still sell, its going to stop the idiotic christmas scramble that causes so many games to be rushed and incomplete

I for one am GLAD to see some of this getting pushed back. I've had enough of the last 3 months of the year being a release frenzy. And it probably helps the game publishers too, because it reduces the chances of games falling through the cracks because everyone gets overwhelmed.

As far as I understand it, the many release shiftings rather result from entrepreneurial descisions than fear of competition: 2009 is kind of a lost year, everybody talks about the economic crisis, thatswhy no shareholder will complain about a (game) company's lousy performance this year. At the same time the companies can almost certainly rely on a formidable renaissance in 2010 when they come up with there new Bioshocks, Mafias and Max Paynes.

The reason given for the delay of Starcraft II is that Battlenet 2.0 isn't ready. Given the authentication problems suffered by WoW players who have already merged their WoW accounts into a b.net account, I find the explanation plausible.

Like others I am rather glad to read of delayed releases on games - more and more these days games are being releaed with a big focus on visuals, which puts a lot of strain on computers. Considering the last year and the current finances its to be expected that many won't have the money or inclination to upgrade computers that quick - so I guess they are waiting on the slower advance as well.
Also with windows 7 coming out I'm betting many are waiting to see the publics reaction to it and how well its taken up, as well as make sure their games are ready for it. No good to release games to the public, only to have them crash and burn when they go to upgrade their OS system or get a new computer.

Batman's PC version is delayed again LOL.
http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=64979

Alpha Protocol is still supposed to come out in October as far as I know. It looks mildly promising.

Yeah, I seriously doubt Blizzard and Starcraft are afraid of anyone. And please, Blizzard and delays are almost synonymous.

On the bright side, 2010's going to be one hell of a good year for gaming. But I was kind of hoping to see more of that goodness sooner.

And the plot thickens. There is speculation that Starcraft II has been delayed because of--
Prototype.
http://fidgit.com/archives/2009/08/was_starcraft_ii_delayed_becau.php
If this is correct, Markenname may be right, but not the way he thinks. If folks hadn't bought Prototype, they might not have juggled the releases to even out revenue.

i'm really really really waiting on DIABLO3
and torchlight. Hope it ain't the next DNF (did not finish ~ Duke nuke forever)