One of the highest profile racing titles that was expected for release was Blur, which was being developed by former Project Gotham Racing developer Bizarre Creations, and which is now aligned with Activision. Activision confirmed today that Blur will not be making the starting line in 2009 and is being pushed back till 2010.

Activision says that the decision to postpone the release of Blur is to allow the developers more time to enhance the game’s innovative and distinctive online multi-player gameplay. What we hear from our sources is that actually the game could have made the release date, but the multi-player was weak and needed more work.

Activision is looking to establish Blur as a new showcase franchise for the future and the company feels that it is very important that the first release get the franchise off to a solid start to attract a fan base that will help support the franchise and make it successful in the long term. So, while the delay might be viewed as a bad thing, it actually might be helpful to make sure that the initial release in the franchise is everything that it could be.

While some gamers view Blur as the spiritual successor to PGR 4, it would appear that Blur is going in a totally different direction from the PGR franchise in many ways. As the multi-player was one of the strongest areas within the previous PGR titles, it is surprising that Activision would suggest that the multi-player was the area of Blur that still needed work.

Blur is not the first racing title to be pushed back until next year. Disney also bumped the release of Split/Second, which is being developed by Pure developer Black Rock Studios until early in 2010, as well. As for Blur, beyond saying that it would be released in 2010, Activision didn’t provide any actual hint as to when in 2010 we could expect it to be released. It will be interesting to see if Blur finds itself head to head with Split/Second when it is finally released.

The decision to delay the release of Blur also helps to thin the herd of racing titles for this holiday season, which might have also factored into this decision. With Blur postponed, only Dirt 2 and Need for Speed Shift will vie for the top spot in racing game sales, along with the upcoming release of Forza 3 on the Xbox 360.