Zipper Interactive has announced that their squad-based third-person shooter for the PS3, SOCOM 4, has been delayed until 2011.  The game was originally scheduled to launch sometime this Fall but was held back so that the developers can “deliver the best and most immersive SOCOM game we possibly can.”

This moves SOCOM 4 away from competing with the likes of Halo: Reach, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Crysis 2 and many other games in the shooter genre for this holiday.  Unfortunately, it potentially moves it in a position to compete with the likes of Killzone 3, Bulletstorm, Brink and Gears of War 3 in the first half of 2011.  SOCOM games generally do appeal to a different niche of shooter fans though.