As announced earlier today, the long-in-development L.A. Noire is now officially a 2011 title. But why?

Speaking on publisher Take-Two’s earnings call, executives shed a little light on the crime title’s slip; delivering a groundbreaking A+ game can, wouldn’t you know it, ‘take a while’.

Aussie developer Team Bondi is “pushing the envelope” with this one, it was said. Couple that with T2 being mindful of what the competition is doing and you have all the makings of a good delay; the publisher wants L.A. Noire to have a “rational release schedule” and will try to pick the right marketing window for it.

The success of Red Dead Redemption was brought as an example; the western too spent many, many year’s in development but was released in a window where it could do the most damage. As an executive put it on the call, picking the right release window allowed the game to ‘take down’ titles that were both on schedule and on budget (that would be UFC Undisputed 2010).

To date, Red Dead Redemption has sold 6.9 million copies worldwide.

There’s “nothing else quite like” L.A. Noire out there in terms of technology and gameplay, it was added, and it’s a title “worth waiting for.” It’s now expected in the first half of 2011.

Ubisoft is set to change things up a bit with its new IP. No more shall they just be associated with the creepy crawly Sam Fisher, the creepy crawly Altaïr/Ezio, and the wall crawling Prince. Now it’s on to the finer things — first-person shooters and clowns.

Details are limited, but Ubisoft has announced that Bloody Good Time is set to hit Xbox Live Arcade and Steam this fall. Running the Source engine, the FPS will be based on a movie set and allows players to choose the backdrop of the game, from the cliche spring break beach house to a Vegas hotel. The game lets up to eight players shoot it out for a starring role in the “film,” all of them able to choose from the typical scary movie cast of characters, like the bikini babe, clown, and the jock. Check a couple of shots of them below.

I only wonder if there’s a part where you fall down and hurt your ankle while trying to get away.. that’s the super scary movie cliche and without it the whole thing falls apart

LucasArts has thinned its ranks, the company has confirmed. While not specifying the number, sources of Kotaku say an estimated 60 from development and an additional 25 from external production and QA have been let go.

“LucasArts is reorganizing its teams to better address the needs of the internal studio,” said the company in a statement. “Unfortunately, this means adjusting staffing.”

The studio’s latest game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, reportedly reached ‘gold’ status on Friday. It’s due out later this month on PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and iPhone.

The PSP version was recently confirmed to be cancelled.

“LucasArts continues to be committed to creating a first-class internal studio – and to fostering relationships with trusted external partners – in order to deliver quality games that amaze and inspire fans.”

That $50 per year PlayStation Plus subscription is about to start paying off; an early access demo of Kratos’ latest killing spree, the Ready at Dawn-developed God of War: Ghost of Sparta, will next week be made available to Plus subscribers and Plus subscribers alone.

No word on what to specifically expect but blood and guts all over the floor is our bet.

Next week will also see the release of a full game trial for Warhawk, just in case there’s someone out there is interested in acquiring a 3-year-old multiplayer-only shooter. You never know.

Here’s a quickie: the OfficialBFBC2 Twitter feed (and blog) have announced that the Medal of Honor multiplayer beta is as of now available to all of those who own Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on Steam. Just download it through your games library and get the action going.

And no, there’s still no word on the Xbox 360 beta.

Word is out that Maxis, the famed EA studio behind the The Sims, Spore and Sim City, is hiring a Development Director for an “unannounced next-generation Online simulation game.”

The ever so observant superannuation speculates that it might be a Facebook game, which could make sense except we’re not sure we would label a Facebook game as a “next-gen” game.

It wouldn’t be erroneous on anyone’s part to think “MMO, definitely an MMO,” because we do too, a little bit. But it’s all speculation at this point.

PC Gamer’s recent report on Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s cooperative Onslaught mode making its way to the PC has proven to be inaccurate.

“The article published by PC-Gamer is not accurate,” tweets DICE’s Battlefield community manager.

The developer is still “researching” if Onslaught could be made available for PC though, the tweet also informs, so nothing’s changed since May when changing a 32-player server to a 4-player one was seen as a potiential trouble maker.

PC Gamer has removed their story.

We’ve all seen Dead Rising 2’s nifty little limited edition for Europe and Australia, but the set that North America gets quite frankly blows it away. Titled the Zombrex Edition, this version packs in a pen in the shape of a syringe, a safety information card, a notepad, and a brochure.

There’s also the standard steelbook, ‘making of’ disc, and an artbook to snap up. Plus, the PS3 version gets an exclusive dynamic theme, while the 360 gets the “Zombrex Dead Rising Sun” motion picture on Live (a Keiji Inafune-directed episodic offering, starts on Aug 4).

All that for $79.99. You have until September 28th to decide if the extra $20 is worth it.

The NPD Group’s North American sales numbers for the month of June are in, and there’s no slowing down Red Dead Redemption on the software end.

The Rockstar westerner remains the best-selling title for the second month in a row with its Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions taking the first and third spots, respectively, and none other than Super Mario Galaxy 2 tucked in between.

Red Dead sold a total of 960k copies across both versions, while the Wii platformer came just shy of 550k.

Looking at the hardware, the new Xbox 360 model (451,7k), as expected — announced and released halfway through the month — handily outsold the PS3 (304,8k) and even slid in front of the Wii (422,5k) by roughly 30,000 units. The DS (510k) remains the biggest seller of them all however.

Full breakdown follows.

1. Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360), 582,900
2. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii), 548,400
3. Red Dead Redemption (PS3), 380,300
4. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii), 200,900
5. Just Dance (Wii), 174,800
6. Wii Fit Plus (Wii)
7. Toy Story 3 (NDS)
8. UFC 2010: Undisputed (Xbox 360)
9. LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Wii)
10. UFC 2010: Undisputed (PS3)

Home consoles
Xbox 360: 451,700
Wii: 422,500
PlayStation 3: 304,800

Handhelds
Nintendo DS: 510,700
PSP: 121,000

Denise Kaigler is set to return to the game industry. The former vice president of corporate affairs at Nintendo of America is joining 38 Studios.

According to Gamasutra, Kaigler has taken up the role of marketing officer at the Massachusetts-based outfit.

Kaigler left Nintendo in November of 2009 to work closer to home. 38 Studios is based in New England. That’s where she lives! Handy!!

38 Studios, founded by former professional ball thrower Curt Schilling, are currently working on an “epic single-player role-playing game” codenamed Project Mercury. With lead design from the man behind Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a script by by best-selling fantasy author R. A. Salvatore and artistic direction by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, it sounds ultra-promising.