I have been holding off posting news on a possible delay of The Sims 3 release… But I’m afraid I cannot hold it off for much longer.  The past few days, various fansites begin piecing together information gathered from retail sites, EA customer support reps, videos and even articles and they all lead up to one thing:  a chance that TS3 may be delayed.

Eurogamer strengths the rumors even more as they just posted an article in which EA has told UK retailers last week:

“We are evaluating the launch window. The game looks great and in the near future we’ll have more information.”

Many retailers are stating that the game has moved it’s date to the first half of 2009, some even suggest it could be as late as August.  Both SnootySims and InfiniteSims compiled a list of things that seem to give the whole possibility of a delay a solid foundation:

  1. There is still no official word on the boxart cover as EA/Maxis removed the cover that they were planning to use.
  2. They still haven’t decided on whether they plan to use SecuROM (which in my opinion is an easy decision – don’t)
  3. The release date of Feb. 20th has been removed from the official site, along from the EA Store
  4. Apparently some users are reporting that newer videos state the game will be released “sometime this year”
  5. Various retailers are reporting that the game has been pushed back to March, June or August.
  6. Eurogamer’s article that EA is “Evaluating the launch window”
  7. Those who email or contact EA Tech Support either say the game have been getting conflicting results of a delay or the release is still on time

All I know is that we should hear something about this matter sometime this week.  If it’s on time, then a “going gold” statement will be issued, otherwise expect to hear a press release stating that the game is delayed.  Personally, I wouldn’t mind it one bit if it is.  Even though the people that attended The Sims 3 Creator’s Camp was playing a month’s old build of the game, they still stated it was extremely buggy.  It would hurt EA/Maxis even more releasing a buggy game (especially if those bugs were game-stopping bugs) then pushing back the release date!