During a business update this morning, Ubisoft revealed that two of its biggest upcoming titles – Splinter Cell Conviction and Red Steel 2 – would be slipping from a Fall 2009 release window into 2010. Fortunately, it's not a staggering blow. Both games are now slated for an "early 2010" release.

The reasons for these delays? Varied. According to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, the delays are chiefly due to a decline in sales. Guillemot blames piracy of DS games for this "sharp slowdown" and points out how Ubisoft's DS sales are down 67 percent.

"Piracy is strong so we are working to put new figurines and new elements in the boxes that will change that in the future," Guillemot stated.

As for Red Steel 2, it seems the development team requested additional time to produce a more quality product. Considering how many frowny-faces the first Red Steel elicited, however, that's probably a smart move.

Splinter Cell Conviction and Red Steel 2 aren't the only Ubisoft games riding the delay train. I Am Alive and Ghost Recon are being pushed back to fiscal year 2010-2011.

Let's not beat around the proverbial bush: this news downright sucks. But we can still put some positive spin on this. I mean, as excited as I am for Splinter Cell Conviction there's a mess of other titles coming out this Fall, and now I'll be able to afford more of these titles and rely less on tricking GameFly by keeping my GameQ down to 2-3 high profile games only.