As predicted yesterday, SCEA announced overnight that the hotly anticipated Gran Turismo 4 will be heavily delayed, following news of a four week slip of the Japanese version.

The US version has been harshly delayed however, slipping from December 14th to a non-specific release window described as “…the January-to-March window of 2005.”

In quite the most predictable statement to be released this year, SCEA said, “Natural challenges with finalizing all the key features and localization issues across worldwide territories have led to the difficult choice of pushing back the release date in order to ensure that Gran Turismo 4 lives up to the exacting standards of the 36 million-plus fans worldwide that have purchased previous versions.”

This news also casts a spectre of doubt across the European release, which currently is due within the same window, though with SCEE placing a 28 February date on the launch.

It is widely expected that this date, perhaps the tenth (actually tenth!) date to sit abreast the game will slip, probably to Easter, totalling a staggering eighteen month delay total for the key sim software.

As ever, if anything further breaks, you’ll be the first to know.