Publisher Take-Two is going to have a very busy—and likely very profitable—beginning to 2010, with a quartet of top-tier releases all hitting in the first half of next year. That means BioShock 2, Max Payne 3 and more.
Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said during an earnings call today that Mafia II, Red Dead Redemption, BioShock 2 and Max Payne 3 would all be shipping sometime between February and June of 2010. That's a pretty packed schedule, but it's not like Take-Two has much choice.
Some of those games were pushed back from originally planned 2009 releases, joining the ever crowded Q1 and Q2 of next year. Take-Two gave a looser release window for some of those games back in July. At the time, Take-Two execs blamed a softer economy and development issues.
But Zelnick sounded confident that all four heavy hitters would ship in that five month window.
Rockstar Games, developer of two of the slipped titles that now have more firm sounding release plans, has had a little trouble making its dates this generation, with similar slips on Midnight Club Los Angeles and Grand Theft Auto IV.