Sony is to put off the release of its much awaited PlayStation 3 videogame console by six months until November because of delays in finalising its next-generation optical disk technology.

The delay comes as a boost to Microsoft in the battle to control the $25 billion global videogame market. Microsoft launched its rival system, the Xbox 360, last year.

Ken Kutaragi, the head of Sony’s video games division, made the announcement at a hastily called news conference after reports of the delay surfaced in the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun and other newspapers.

The PlayStation 3 is critical for Sony’s attempts to climb back from a profits slump under its new Welsh-born CEO, Howard Stringer.

Early reports of the delay sent Sony’s stock tumbling 1.8 per cent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, although Mr Kutaragi did not announce the decision until after the close of the market. "I’d like to apologise for the delay," he said. "I have been cautious because many people in various areas are banking on the potential of the next-generation DVD."

Mr Kutaragi said that the company is still trying to finalise the copyright protection technology for the Blu-ray DVD disk, the format for PlayStation 3, and next-generation video for the company’s electronics gadgets in the works.

Blu-ray preparations were initially to have been completed by September last year, but now will not be finalised until next month, he said.

The PlayStation 3 console can be used as a Blu-ray DVD player, but will also read previously released PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games. It will also have a hard disk drive, broadband and wireless internet connections, and support high-definition televisions.

The new deadline means that the PlayStation 3 will still hit store shelves simultaneously in Japan, North America and Europe, just in time for Christmas. The company is expecting monthly production of 1 million machines, and targeting production of 6 million units for the fiscal year up to the end of March 2007.

The PlayStation series is now the dominant brand for home consoles, helping support Sony’s bottom line in recent years. Sony has shipped nearly 204 million of all three versions of its PlayStation machine worldwide.

But competition in next-generation game consoles is heating up with Microsoft stealing a march with its new Xbox. Nintendo, the Japanese manufacturer of Game Boy machines and Pokemon and Super Mario game software, is also planning its version, called Revolution, later this year.

Yuji Fujimori, a Goldman Sachs analyst, said that the success of the machine when it goes on sale, including pricing and game software lineup, will be more important than the timing of the sale. A delay was already factored into the share price, he said, because of growing speculation the PlayStation 3 may be delayed.

"The news brings some measure of assurance in that it indicates the PS3 will be ready for the year-end holiday season," the analyst said.

Read Leo Lewis's weblog from Tokyo here

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