25 to Life's sentence extended

Following the announcement that Eidos' 25 to Life has been delayed in the US until next year, confusion is growing over whether the game is still on track for a spring 2006 release in Europe.

According to a recent statement by Bill Gardner, Eidos' CEO of US publishing: "Following the recent management change and restructure, Eidos is able to re-evaluate its calendar of releases giving us the opportunity to make changes in the best interest of the business.

"It is in light of this review that we have decided to move the ship date for 25 to Life from October 2005 into next year." No further details of the new release date were given.

At the time of publication, Eidos' UK office was unable to confirm whether the game's European release date was also affected, despite repeated requests for comment.

The PC, PS2 and Xbox shooter came under fire back in June when a New York senator declared that the game "lowers common decency." CNN presenter Nancy Grace and long time videogame critic Jack Thompson have also been vocal critics of the game, and some industry analysts have speculated that the controversy surrounding 25 to Life may have prompted Eidos to delay the game's release indefinitely.

However, it seems unlikely that this could be the case - negative media coverage arguably does nothing but improve game sales, taking the Grand Theft Auto series as an example, and any publisher would be likely to accept healthy profits in exchange for controversial publicity.