Take-Two report sheds light on release dates

It's that time again, folks! Time for another slice of Take-Two's secretive release schedule thanks to another quarterly earnings report laced with intrigue. This one starts off by mentioning something about $375.5m compared to $411.0m in the equivalent quarter last year, before hammering on about diluted net income per share guidance or something. You should find a detailed report on all the financial guff on GamesIndustry.biz shortly. We are of course more concerned with the games.

First of all there's good news for Game Boy owners bored of wading through mountains of unsaleable junk in that Max Payne is definitely on track for GBA release on March 19th. You may recall we rather naughtily reviewed the US version of this over Christmas (since we've no time for this sort of scheduling stupidity) and found it to be surprisingly enjoyable. What's more, joining it on the GBA schedule is Destination Software's take on Grand Theft Auto, which finally gets itself a loose release estimate of fiscal third quarter, meaning between May and July of this year.

On the bigger end of things, Take-Two's most recent high-profile PS2/Xbox acquisition Red Dead Revolver, which it fished out of Capcom's hands when it acquired and transformed Angel Studios into Rockstar San Diego, is now scheduled for a late April release - April 30th according to most retailers. T2 also confirms what we told you earlier this week, that Manhunt is due out on Xbox and PC on April 23rd in Europe. However the report still lacks closure on the issue of Mafia Xbox, which failed to materialise alongside its PS2 partner at the end of January, and is now down for release sometime in fiscal Q2, i.e. between February and April.

Take-Two's latest report also reiterates the publisher's plan to release a game based on Paramount's film The Warriors during fiscal Q3 (May to July), developed by Rockstar North no less, with Vice City set to make an appearance on PC and Xbox in Japan at around the same time under an existing agreement with Capcom.

There was no mention of course of 3D Realms' Duke Nukem Forever, so no doubt the suits at Take-Two decided to take George Broussard's advice and "STFU" about it. We'd still expect someone to mention it in the traditional conference call later on today though, so if anything comes out of that we'll run an update.

Finally, there was also no mention of Xbox and PC versions of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which is of course a PS2 exclusive for now and due out here on October 22nd, but we will literally eat our own faces if Xbox and PC versions don't materialise at some point in the future, assuming Sony hasn't handed over a truckload more cash to secure the series' long long term future.