One less obstacle?

I've been trying to figure out whenabouts Shadow Chronicles would or should be released, seeing what releases other companies have on the schedule that might lure attention away from our favorite franchise's long awaited sequel. For instance, Marvel & Lion's Gate's Ultimate Avengers: The Movie, based on the Marvel comic book series The Ultimates by Mark Millar & Bryan Hitch, comes out February 21. Obviously they might want to avoid that date, since both releases will be going after the same audience. For a while I thought that March 28 might also be off-limits, because Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children -- the long awaited, much delayed, and lushly animated CG feature from the fine folks at Square Enix, picking up where the PSone role playing classic left off -- was slated to hit Region 1 DVD on that date.

Now, apparently not. From The Digital Bits:

By the way... you fans of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children will be pleased to learn this. Mike Stradford told me that Sony's working hard to get the film released on DVD here in the States by the end of 2006. Apparently, it's taking a little extra time to work with the director to get all the supplemental elements finished, but the title is on track for release sometime later this year. I seem to get at least one e-mail asking about Advent Children a day, so there you go!

The words sometime later this year make me think, hmm, looks like the field of first quarter dates available to Team Shadow Chronicles has opened up wide ...