You can see the usual Xbox 360 box art banner above. Say goodbye, dear readers, because Microsoft is preparing to replace it. With what? you ask.

Behold! This is the dawn of a new era, of a bold new direction, of oh let’s face it this is kind of lame. But there you have it, folks. If you check out the Amazon pages for Kane and Lynch 2 or Mafia II you can see the new banner in action (although the latter game only shows the new art on the Collector’s Edition for some strange reason). Let us know what you think.

It seems delaying BioShock 2 until the first half of 2010 wasn’t enough for publisher Take-Two Interactive. We now know that in addition to the aforementioned title, Take-Two has delayed Mafia II, Max Payne 3, and Red Dead Redemption until 2010.

Take-Two wasn’t as specific with these three titles as they were for BioShock 2, so we can’t say if this a delay until fiscal year 2010, or just plain ol’ 2010. If it’s the former, these games could still come out in 2009. If the latter—which is the most likely possibility, given the glut of titles already confirmed for late ’09—then who knows when we’ll see them.

As some of you folks commented on the previous delay article, this is largely a good thing for gamers. We’ll have far less stacked on our plates so that we can savor every bite. And is anyone really surprised? Take-Two did the same thing in 2007, pushing Grand Theft Auto IV back until an unspecified time in 2008, only giving us a firm date further down the line.

Of the three additional titles being delayed, the only one that bothers me is Red Dead Redemption. I was disappointed by Red Dead Revolver, but the sequel is shaping up quite nicely. It looks like the game the original should have been. What about you folks? Any of these delays got you down?