Max Payne 3 delayed – again. Take-Two earnings to suffer

The oft-delayed Max Payne 3 has hit another roadblock and been pushed back again – and the delay is going to push publisher Take-Two Interactive Software into the red.

The company's Rockstar Games division announced this morning that the game, originally set to launch this March, would now not bow before May. That marks the fourth delay, if you're keeping score at home.

Because the game has been pushed out of the fiscal year, Take-Two was forced to revise its estimates, deducting an anticipated $210 to $230 million in revenue. The company now expects to report a loss for fiscal 2012.

"We do not take changes to our release schedule lightly, and this short delay will ensure that Max Payne 3 delivers the highest quality, groundbreaking entertainment experience that is expected from our company," said CEO Strauss Zelnick.

In an interview with Variety last year, Dan Houser, one of the studio heads at Rockstar discussed the impact the frequent delays have had on the team.

"I think it's part of the industry, if you want high quality games," he said. Maybe, if you are making a sequel without much design innovation and without any real technical innovation -- you know, just a bunch of new content on board with a broadly existing engine with a broadly existing design -- you can have some degree of confidence in guessing your release date.

"Anyone that's doing what we were trying to do and guesses at the start of the project exactly when things are going to be done, well they are better at this job than I am. We can't do that while guaranteeing quality.

What impact did it have on the team? None negative. I think the team was happy that we were pursuing quality. They weren't done, and they could see they weren't finished and it wasn't right, so we were going to keep working on it until it was finished and it was right."