News has emerged that the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum is likely to be pushed back to the first quarter of 2011.

The game was originally expected to ship for Christmas this year, but UK retail sources have revealed that game’s publisher, Warner, wants to “dominate the first quarter of 2011 instead, when it can get maximum retail space and mind share amongst gamers.”

Apparently there just isn’t enough ‘mind share’ to go around at Christmas nowadays, and last year saw the beginning of a trend where big-name titles are released in January or February to avoid getting lost in the Christmas rush.

Of course, there have always been one or two big games that get released in January, but historically these games have always been the ones that missed their Christmas shipping deadlines. However, Christmas 2009 saw publishers actively moving the release dates of their games to Q1 2010 to avoid going head to head with the mighty retail juggernaut that is Modern Warfare 2.

The strategy seems to have paid off, with console and game sales reaching record numbers for the Q1 period this year, and gamers had something of a New Year bonanza, snapping up quality titles such as Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2 and Bayonetta.

This latest news seems to indicate we’re in for another bumper crop of gaming goodness for the first quarter of next year. Arkham Asylum 2will be in good company in the early weeks of 2011: other games confirmed for the period include big hitters such as Marvel vs. Capcom 3,Gears of War 3, Bodycount and possibly Killzone 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

This has to be good news for gamers – releasing triple-A games gradually over the course of the year surely makes more sense than releasing a tidal wave of them at Christmas. However, with all these great games scheduled for next year, it does leave one big question: what are we going to play at Christmas?

Source: CVG