Red Dead Redemption has slipped again, but this time Take-Two claims that the decision to push back the release date has more to do with avoiding the packed April releases than the need for additional time to polish and tweak the title.

According our sources, while the spin might suggest that the decision to push the release back from April 27th to new date of May 18th was to avoid the releases of other April titles, the whispers we hear claim that the time will be put to good use polishing the title prior to release. May is also a very crowded month, with at least three major titles set for launch that month.

Depending on whom you ask Red Dead Redemption has had a rocky development cycle, with some sources claiming that the development was in trouble and that is why the decision was made to push the release back the first time.

With the announcement of the move to May 28th, this is the third time that the release date has been moved. Originally, the title was scheduled to launch late last year, only to have Take-Two claim that they were pushing it to next year so that they would not have to compete with the slew of titles trying to make an end- of-the-year launch date.

Only time will tell if this strategy works for Take-Two, but as the title is being billed as the next generation of sandbox games, it will have a lot of hype to live up to. From the pictures and trailers that we have seen from the game, it does look like it could be an excellent western-themed game, but we will now have to wait till May to find out for sure.