Splinter Cell is a third person stealth action game, featuring cyber-terrorism, shadow agencies, and covert operations and is set in the realistic, highly detailed geopolitical universe as portrayed in the works by Tom Clancy. In the fall of 2002, Ubi Soft will debut this lone stealth action game worldwide on the Xbox and PC, with further new generation platforms following in 2003.
According to the German site Gamigo, Ubisoft decided not to release Splinter Cell until the end of February. Seems they need more time to optimise the game for systems with older (read: Geforce2) video cards.
The site also mentions a one month delay for Ubisofts Rainbow Six III: Raven Shield. The release date is now set for March. No further details available.