Bad news comes in threes as some of the year’s most heavily anticipated games – Gran Turismo 5, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Ruse – have been delayed.

Reports have surfaced that Gran Turismo 5, previously believed to release in March this year, will now launch at an as yet unspecified date. However, Sony claims that the Japanese market was the only territory in which a firm release date had been set. “This information on the GT release is only applicable for the Japanese market,” said a Sony representative to www.computerandvideogames.com. “SCEE will announce the launch date for this game in the PAL territories in due course.” The game has been in development for some time now, following its unveiling at E3 in 2006. It’s unknown at this stage whether the Japanese situation hints to further delays with the game’s wider international release.

Not limited to Japan, however, is the news that two of Ubisoft’s upcoming titles – namely Splinter Cell: Conviction and Ruse – will not launch on their scheduled February release dates. The publisher has announced that Splinter Cell: Conviction will now launch in April, with Ruse given only a loose “fiscal year 2010-11”. Ubisoft’s next fiscal year begins on April 1st.

Splinter Cell: Conviction has also experienced a long and troubled development. Originally scheduled for release in May 2008, it's experienced a number of delays since it was first teased in 2007..