Ubisoft delays Far Cry 3's release into holiday quarter

Ubisoft has delayed the North American release of Far Cry 3 by three months, and will now ship the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows first-person shooter on December 4, 2012. The game is one of the Parisian publisher's biggest titles due in the second half of 2012, and was originally set to release on September 3, during the company's second fiscal quarter. Now it will ship in its October-to-December quarter, along with two other marquee holiday games, Just Dance 4 and Assassin's Creed III. Primary developer Ubisoft Montreal (the company's Reflections, Shanghai, and Massive studios are also contributing) claims that the delay is due to the team needing "more time to create the best possible gameplay experience." Since its debut in 2004, the Far Cry franchise has sold around 8 million copies, making it one of the company's best-selling series. Far Cry 3 will be the company's first game built on Dunia 2, a new version of Ubisoft's in-house engine based on Crytek's CryEngine. Along with announcing the delay on Monday morning, Ubisoft reaffirmed its previous financial guidance for its 2012-2013 fiscal year (ending March 2013) -- it expects to generate somewhere between €1.16 billion and €1.2 bilion ($1.45 billion to $1.5 billion) in revenues.