First we reported that the highly anticipated Xbox 360 drive-'em-up, Project Gotham Racing 4 would have bikes (reported May 10th), then we reported that limited space on the ageing DVD format meant that Bizarre creations would have to leave out items from the finished game (reported 31 July).

Now we've got to swallow our tears and report that the entire game has been delayed... maybe.

First, the Xbox Family site reports, "The new release date has been changed to October 2nd or 3rd. We know it's one of those 2 dates. We're guessing it's October 2nd, since the 2nd is a Tuesday."^†

The 'delay' apparently is from a street date mooted as 21st September.

So, we of course, buzzed off a communication to developer, Bizarre Creations, and then jogged over to its forum where we came upon the following post from Bizarre staffer, 'The Boy Chris', "People always make dates up when you near the end of development. Unless us or Microsoft tell you, take it with a pinch of salt eh?"

This is alongside forum postings stating that as no release dates have been confirmed... the game can't be delayed. Smart, uh?

But then we re-read our friends over at Kikizo's recent interview with Adam Kovach, Global Product Manager for PGR4 at Microsoft, and Alan Mealor, an artist from Bizarre Creations. Tucked in at the very end of the interview is, "Project Gotham Racing 4 is scheduled for release at the end of September, but Bizarre has previous stressed an "as long as it takes" approach to finishing the game, so don't be surprised if it gets put back a little (in fact, at the time of going live with this feature, unconfirmed reports suggest it's been put back to early October - stay tuned for official news). "^††

We draw no conclusions - which is why we've contacted Bizarre directly.

^†Source: Xbox Family News
^††Source Kikizo