Speaking exclusively to Gamesindustry.biz, Ubisoft Game Designer Michael de Plater acknowledges that the festive holiday season is a “brutal” duration to release new IPs and that many good games could fall wayside as a result.

“It’s a bit tough to launch a new IP exactly at Christmas when you’re head-to-head with blockbuster sequels. It’s interesting to see a number of big titles, like Heavy Rain, being targeted at 2010 to avoid the Christmas rush,” he explained. “And Ubisoft’s got Ruse coming out in 2010. Even God of War 3’s in 2010, that’s how brutal it is. I mean, you’ve got Assassins Creed 2, Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect 2.”

“To me, it’s been a period of enormous change, and the last four years I would say has been the time when games have actually surpassed movies as the premium blockbuster entertainment,” he continues.

Speaking of, the summer is basically an empty season for video games. I don’t know why developers and publishers can’t just space things out because, like I said, the summer season is basically empty for video games.

No this isn’t a April Fools joke, mainly because it’s not April. But, the kind sirs, and madams, over at Microsoft are offering Silver members the chance to upgrade to Gold for one month. Here’s were it gets good, all this for the one time price of $1.

However, being a “limited-time offer”, which it is, when the free months up, you’ll be charged for the rest of the year, but, of course, you can opt out of it.

Personally, from our eyes it has been a truly amazing year, in both gaming and entertainment, and well some of us may of wished that it was better. We are still very happy that you guys come to visit the site, so to thank you all we are going to be doing something beyond your common expectations in the upcoming months, but you guys are just going to have to wait to figure out what it is.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank each and every one of you for being such faithful readers of  the site. It has been a year and a couple months and, to this date, we have severed over 3 million gamers and for that we Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

Also, before we go. I’ll like to take sometime and try an thank all the nice PR people that have connected us will the equipment for this site, so thank you very much.

Unlike some company’s we know, Square-Enix!, Atlus knows how to cater to their fans, by the way I was just kidding about that statement. While checking out a demo for “Persona 4″ last week, MTV’s Multiplayer Blog noticed that “Persona 4″ was shipping on December 9, which is a date before Christmas but after the Thanksgiving sales rush, Black Friday. So why not just wait until January or February, when people might have gift cards, etc.?

“The one problem is from a retail standpoint, retailers are very averse, across the board, to bringing anything in after Thanksgiving,” said Atlus’ manage of public relations and sales Aram Jabbari. “If they can avoid any product in December, they will.”

Until February, Jabbari explained, retailers want to move their excess stock. They don’t want new products. Atlus recently received word “Persona 4″ is approved for release and will hit its release date. If that hadn’t happened…

“What that means is, if a game [like 'Persona'] is to slip and it was set for the first week of December, it’s essentially the kiss of death,” said Jabbari.“Every retailer would cancel orders. That’s why you don’t see many games coming out December through February.”

[‘Persona 4′ Must Release On December 9 Or Receive The ‘Kiss Of Death’ From Retail via MTV]