That’s the sound of many, many Xbox 360 gamers shouting unintelligible nonsense upon hearing the news that Gears of War 3 has been delayed from April, 2011 to the holiday season of 2011. Oh dear.

The game, which was scheduled for release on April 5, 2011, has been pushed back. Yes, you just read that in the headline and in the first paragraph. Redundant!

But why? Not really sure. Microsoft said, “The teams at Microsoft Game Studios and Epic Games have done great work thus far readying the title for release in the Spring of 2011. However, we’ve elected to move the launch of Gears of War 3 until Fall 2011 to make it the marquee title for the holiday season.”

“Elected”? That could be that Microsoft wanted a guaranteed hit for the holidays at the expenses of the springtime months (when no games come out anyway), so it moved it back a few months.

Or, the game needed a bit more work.

Either way, you’ll be playing it when everyone is saying “happy holidays!” to each other, like we’re all pre-programmed Sims.

Just a reminder: the Xbox 360 came out in November, 2005, so the little Microsoft box is getting up there in age.