Take-Two confirms early 2010 line-up

Take-Two has confirmed that it plans to release four major titles in the first half of 2010. BioShock 2, Max Payne 3, Red Dead Redemption and Mafia II will all see release between the start of February and end of June 2010, chief executive Ben Feder told investors.

"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 said, according to GameSpot. "At this point, we don't expect any of these titles to launch within our first fiscal quarter ending January 31, 2010."

Most of these games were originally planned to see the light of day in 2009 - notably, BioShock 2 was originally slated for a late October or early November release. Announcing the delays earlier this year, Take-Two said the games needed longer in development and that it was seeking an "improved retail environment" - suggesting that it was one of many publishers running scared from the release of Modern Warfare 2 this Christmas.

Of the four games, we know plenty about the BioShock and Mafia sequels, but the two Rockstar games - dark western Red Dead Redemption and, especially, Max Payne 3 - remain rather elusive. So confirmation that they'll be seeing the light of day in the first six months of next year is welcome.

You'll find more information on the Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3, BioShock 2 and Mafia II gamepages. All will be released for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, except Red Dead, which is for the consoles only.