BioShock 2, Mafia II, Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3 due before July 2010

For a while there, it looked like Take-Two was in for a busy holiday 2009 season. However, beginning with BioShock 2, and continuing with Mafia II and Red Dead Redemption, Take-Two and its subsidiary Rockstar Games pushed a number of key titles into the publisher's 2010 fiscal year, which runs November 1, 2009, through October 31, 2010.

As part of a post-earnings conference call today, Take-Two CEO Ben Feder said that gamers can expect to see all three anticipated titles, along with Rockstar Vancouver's Max Payne 3, ship during the first half of 2010, but after January 31. (Rockstar has previously stated that Max Payne 3 is due this winter.)

"We are continuing to evaluate the optimal release window for these titles and still plan to release all four titles in the first half of calendar 2010," Feder told analysts today. "At this point, we don't expect any of these titles to launch within our first fiscal quarter ending January 31, 2010."

Feder also fielded an analyst's question concerning Microsoft's and Sony's upcoming camera-based motion-sensing technology, both of which were unveiled during the hardware makers' respective E3 2009 press conferences. According to Feder, while commenting on unannounced games was out of the question, various Take-Two studios are toying around with the tech.

"Those dev kits are embedded in all of our studios, or just about all of our studios, and everybody is working with them to try to figure out new ways in which we can innovate and create the kind of concepts that this company is famous for," he confirmed. "So, yes, we are working on it."

Last week, Sony Computer Entertainment president Kaz Hirai said that the PlayStation 3's motion-sensing tech should emerge in spring 2010. Microsoft has yet to attach a date to the launch of its own motion-sensing add-on--codenamed Project Natal--though industry-watchers seem to agree that the device will also be available next year.