qb's Meteos delayed; Lumines to be published by Ubisoft?

Japanese developer qb's pair of next-gen handheld puzzlers are in the spotlight as rumour spreads that Ubisoft will publish PSP title Lumines in North America while DS title Meteos has been delayed in Japan.

qb has decided to hold off the release of Meteos in order to apply some last minute polish, according to producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who spoke last week of how "reluctant" he was to change the date, and apologised to fans on the developer's website.

Meteos, a traditional blocks-from-the-sky puzzler, was designed by Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai and involves moving blocks up and down to align groups of three which then fly off the screen carrying the blocks above away with them. It will now be released in Japan on 10th March.

Meanwhile, US online retailer GameStop.com has begun listing Mizuguchi's other puzzler, Lumines, for release in March as an Ubisoft title. The game, which is published in Japan by Bandai, hadn't previously been confirmed for US release.

When contacted by the US press, reps were unable to confirm that Ubi would be publishing Lumines, but indicated that the company would "likely make an announcement next week," - something that, going on past experience, a publisher would be unlikely to admit to if there wasn't some degree of truth behind it.