Ahh, Huxley. Were it not for the Korean Open Beta - which apparently exists, and has players and everything - we would have to keep checking Snopes to see if it was still considered real or not.

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In an effort to make sure that the video game of the theatrical version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince follows the movie experience as closely as possible, Electronic Arts and Warner Bros. Interactive have decided to push back the game to coincide with the movie's recently modified summer 2009 release date. It makes sense - after all, they wouldn't want to ruin the plot of the movie based on the book that everyone has already read. EA's Bright Light Studio will of course use the extra six months between the original release date and the July movie premiere to polish up the game, giving us the best interactive Harry Potter experience ever.

Or they'll just sit on it and move on to the next one. One of those.

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Along with the news that it had beaten last year's losses by over 50% this year, Midway's quarterly results also show that two of its big titles have slipped off this year's calender into the next. Both the continuously pushed back Vin Diesel vehicle Wheelman and the GTA-style This Is Vegas won't be seeing the light of day this year, but they've got TNA Impact coming out so everything will be fine and dandy.

"Notwithstanding the game slips and the likely delay of a return to profitability for another year, we remain cautiously optimistic that Midway will perform better in 2009 than it is expected to perform in 2008", said Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, who also said that "the low point in Midway's turnaround story" is behind it.

See? Everything is going to be alright. Pachter says so.

Midway Moves Wheelman, Vegas To 2009 [Gamasutra]

How quickly "Spring 2008" becomes "Q1 2009." Ubisoft is the next up to confess it's shunted a title out of its fall lineup into next year, after we reported a similar delay for Namco-Bandai's Afro Samurai.

This time, it's Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X, according to CVG, which sails right past Spring 2008 to land anywhere between January and March of next year. Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway has been bumped forward a bit to September as well, presumably to fill in the gap.

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Ah, Fall 2008. It's the Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, because early on in a year, Fall 2008 seems to be the Promised Land of game releases. Everything's coming out in that pleasantly hazy "Fall 2008" window.

That is, until the delays begin. "Fall 2008" is liable to become any date from October to February, and that's exactly what's happened with the impressive-looking Afro Samurai, now delayed to January 27th. Feels funny calling it a "delay" when we never really had a date, huh?

Afro Samurai Delayed to January 27 [Shacknews]

When we played the Vin Diesel vehicle Wheelman at E3 last week, we were mostly surprised to learn that the game was coming out in the Fall. "What, this game?" we thought. While enjoyable junk food and technically impressive in parts, Wheelman felt like a game that was six months out, in need of a bit of polish before it went public.

Fortunately, that's what it sounds like Midway is planning to do, as reps told us at Comic-Con tonight that the title, originally scheduled for a release this year will get more time in the development incubator. Now planned for a Q1 '09 release, Wheelman will still beat the movie of the same name to the theatres, it will arrive just a bit later and hopefully be the better for it.

We also hope they'll rewrite that pedestrian car dodging logic. Far too many suicidal Barcelonans in this game...

When Ubisoft didn't show Splinter Cell: Conviction at its last event, people worried a little about how the game might be doing. Fear not — the game's doing great. So great, they say, that Ubisoft just decided it'd be better off releasing it as part of its "2009-2010" lineup instead of in this year's fiscal fourth quarter. You know, to "bolster" next year, as the company said in its fiscal first quarter results statement.

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As fans probably noticed, the ultimate version of CD Projekt Red's PC RPG didn't quite make it's original May release window. The developers needed more time to make this version of the game as complete and as bug free as possible while making sure each different language version of the game featured the same high level of polish as the Polish. According to a news post on the official website for The Witcher, the The Witcher Enhanced Edition is now slated for a worldwide release this September. I'd say it's definitely worth the wait, but by now I've proven myself one of the game's biggest fanboys and it wouldn't hold all that much weight anyway.

The Witcher Enhanced Edition Release Date [Official Website]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news guys, but it looks like Mario Kart Wii has been pushed back to April 30 in NZ, though this date is just an estimate from Gameplanet. It's quite possible the game could be delayed for longer.

Here's the relevant info from the news post on GP's site:

The local Nintendo distributors have informed us that the New Zealand release of Mario Kart on Wii has been delayed.

The distributors have not given a reason for the delay, nor are they able to provide a new ETA at this stage. Rest assured that as soon as we have an updated NZ release date we will update our web site and everyone who has pre-ordered.

As for the April 30 date? It's from an email GP sent out to its customers.

Mario Kart (Wii) NZ release delayed [Gameplanet Store, thanks everyone!]

If you're going to deliver bad news, accompanying it with a tasteful selection of screenshots is the way to go. These shots of the unique character models created for The Chronicles of Spellborn, and are delivered with the news that the game is being pushed back to Spring of 2008, due to the developers revising the server infrastructure and a possible publishing agreement. The gameplay is there, the graphics are there, and now they want to tune performance, while laying down the foundations for future expansions and new content. Meanwhile, in publishing land, Frogster Interactive has signed a letter of intent with a renowned MMOG publisher, but even the most renowned-eriffic publisher needs a good 6 months lead time for marketing. In the meantime, closed beta continues, pretty screenshots are generated, and I poke at them every so often to see if they're done yet.

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