Everyone has that special game they look forward to, and everyone must come to terms with the fact that games get delayed. That’s life in the gaming industry. Events beyond developer control such as financial crisis, company buyouts or concerns over content can easily spell delay for even the most anticipated titles. While delay has become an accepted reality, is third-party king Ubisoft experiencing more delays than the industry norm while their greatest rival revs its engines for 2008? It appears so.

There used to be one publisher that suffered these setbacks more often than others--EA. For some time, EA was the mega-publisher associated with licensed cash-ins and poor perception by hardcore gamers. However, it's 2008 and a new era is dawning as EA (thanks to some smart acquisitions) now owns several of gaming’s most exciting franchises--including Mass Effect, Burnout and Mercenaries.

In contrast, Ubisoft, the French publishing giant responsible for the as yet unreleased Far Cry 2, Tom Clancy’s EndWar and Haze recently announced it was delaying the above titles until financial year 2009, which begins on April 1, 2008. On its own, this may not have been particularly disappointing news, but nearly all of these titles have been delayed already. EndWar was originally slated for a November 2007 release–-as was Haze. To make matters worse, there are now rumors circulating that Haze may be released in Spring 2008.

If you’re prone to believe Internet underground rumblings, these delays are the direct result of product performance issues. The mysterious Surfer Girl, an unknown person with purported links to many top video game companies, recently posted that Ubisoft is indeed having development issues.

The cryptic blogger claims that, when Ubisoft sent its video game adaptation of the television show Lost to Sony for approval, they rejected it. The reason given was that the title was boring and had no recognizable gameplay elements. It’s not like we expect the Lost game to be genuinely good, but who knew that Sony actually rejected games? The lack of Playstation 3 software would lead you to believe almost anything would fly right now. Is Ubisoft transitioning to the licensee cash-in troubles that EA experienced not that long ago? It seems plausible.

Surfer Girl goes on to mention numerous troubles plaguing the development of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, citing story rewrites and, again, a lack of compelling gameplay. There were also suggestions that Far Cry 2’s current code set is impossible to run, even on a super high-end PC. And, when it does run on developer hardware, it didn’t look as good as Crysis. Ouch.

These numerous setbacks have left some gamers with a sour taste in their mouths. All the while, EA slowly claws back its reputation by promoting simultaneous, single developer, multi-platform titles and touting its growing list of popular franchises. Ubisoft’s 2008 is going to be tough unless these titles pan out as planned. Playing catch up with this year’s crop of blockbusters -- from Grand Theft Auto IV to Metal Gear Solid 4 is going to be mighty difficult. The EA vs. Ubisoft war is definitely turning into a title bout.

It’s safe to say Ubisoft won Round 1 of the next-generation war against EA. Ghost Recon 1 & 2 along with Rainbow Six: Vegas dominated the charts for months while EA under-performed with the disappointing Def Jam: Icon and Need for Speed Carbon. But this battle is far from over.

Round 2 is just beginning…and I’m putting all my chips on EA.

This column was written by CGC UK Correspondent Rory. If you would like to become a CGC contributer, please contact one of the co-founders.