Valve confirms Half-Life 2 slippage

The most anticipated PC game of the year has officially slipped past its September 30 release date, with developer Valve confirming that Half-Life 2 is now aiming for a launch in time for Christmas.

Following weeks of speculation over whether the game will make its release date, which was originally announced at Valve at E3 this year when the game was unveiled, Valve spokesman Doug Lombardi announced last night that the date is officially being pushed back.

A number of retailers, including leading UK retail chain GAME, have been telling customers for some weeks that the game will not appear until mid-November, but until now Valve was adamant that the title would ship in some form on September 30.

"The previously announced September 30th release date for Half-Life 2 is being pushed back," Lombardi informed gaming news site Shacknews in a statement. "We are currently targeting a holiday release, but do not have a specific "in-store" date to share at this time. We will release that information as soon as we have confirmed a new date."

One interesting spin-off from this decision will be the effect on the launch of ATI's next revisions of its Radeon graphics card range, which are due to appear in the coming weeks. It had been expected that the cards, which Valve says are the best cards currently available for running Half-Life 2, would ship with an OEM version of the game - this will obviously now not be possible, while the slippage of the game will also offer rival NVIDIA a chance to get its next offering onto the market before the arrival of the title being hailed as the main catalyst for PC upgrades this year.