As awesome of a spy as Sam Fisher is, not even he can stand up to the raw, red taping power that is bureaucracy.

In a recent report from Ubisoft?s corporate end, nestled in the fine print just after the report of Ubisoft?s third quarter earnings, was news that the release of the next, highly-anticipated installment in the [i]Splinter Cell[/i] series, [i]Splinter Cell: Double Agent[/i], has been pushed back quite a ways. More specifically, [i]Double Agent[/i] will be locked up until the second fiscal quarter of 2006/2007. In normal calendar terms, that means Sam Fisher?s latest operation won?t be a go until either late 2006 or early 2007.

Ubisoft states that the release date has been pushed back to allow for a simultaneous worldwide launch on all platforms, including the current generation of consoles, the Xbox 360, and PC, and to take advantage of the technology strengths of each platform. All we can say here at MyGamer is that if we?re being forced to wait this long for the next [i]Splinter Cell[/i], especially after how amazingly amazing [i]Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory[/i] is, [i]Double Agent[/i] better be good.