The "holiday season" window that generally runs from September through November every year always sees more than its fair share of big name video game releases. But in recent weeks, a number of publishers have delayed their anticipated titles into the early part of next year, rather than having them face what's sure to be another overcrowded marketplace at the end of 2012.

First, Irrational Games announced that long-awaited BioShock Infinite would hit stores next February, rather than its originally planned October 16 release date. Then Crystal Dynamics announced last week that the latest reboot of the venerable Tomb Raider franchise would be hitting in the first quarter of 2013. Finally, just today, Sega announced that its Alien: Colonial Marines game will be released on February 12, 2013 rather than the previously planned "Fall 2012" window (the new date doesn't apply to the planned Wii U version, which is still up in the air at this point).

It's not like these delays will leave the holiday game shelves barren. Plenty of highly anticipated games are still planted firmly in the busy three-month span, including the newest entries in the Assassin's Creed, Borderlands, Halo, Medal of Honor and Call of Duty franchises (and probably some games that aren't sequels, but who cares about them?). The end-of-year glut of major releases is the obvious result of a flood of extra holiday gift dollars pouring into the game market during the holiday season. After all, would you rather release a game during a month when only serious gamers are going to be looking to buy it, or during a month when those gamers' non-playing friends and relatives are also looking to spend some extra money in the sector.

But there's some benefit to pushing away from the overcrowded holiday shelf as well. Highly anticipated titles with a well known franchise name will probably sell well regardless of when they're released (see this March's launch of Mass Effect 3) while lesser-known franchises can get some elbow room to carve out a niche during the less-crowded months of the year (see the NPD chart-topping performance of April's Prototype 2, a game that would likely be lost in the holiday glut). In either case, the developers will surely benefit from having a few more months of time to add that final coat of polish.

Anyone who has followed the saga of games like Duke Nukem Forever, though, can tell you that there's a limit to how many times a game can be delayed before attentive gamers begin to wonder what's going on behind the scenes. Sega's Aliens: Colonial Marines was first announced on a Game Informer cover in February 2008, and it seems to get further and further from release with each passing E3 demonstration. Other titles, like Sony's The Last Guardian or Ubisoft's Beyond Good and Evil 2 can frustrate gamers with brief announcements followed by years of virtual radio silence, during which gamers either forget about them or start to assume they'll never actually be finished.

Then there are the titles that seem eager to push themselves on the gaming public well before they're ready for release. The marketing machine is already in high gear for games like SimCity, The Elder Scrolls Online, The Last of Us, Crysis 3, and Metro: Last Light, even though none of them will see release before 2012 is out. The long lead time can be a marketing boon if the game can manage to stay in the headlines during a long run-up, but publishers also risk burning out player interest before they can cash in with actual sales.

For the average gamer with a stack of unplayed games sitting in their backlog, having fewer games to buy during the busy holiday season might come as something of an odd relief. Then again, a crowded holiday season usually means an even more crowded bargain bin during the lean spring and summer months. These days, it looks like there are going to be more and more new releases trying to attract your gaming dollars well past the holidays. Better save up those gift cards.