Sony Shares Fall as PS3 Debut Delayed Until November (Update1)

March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of Sony Corp., the world's biggest video game maker, fell after the company said it will delay the release of its PlayStation 3 console by about six months to early November.

Sony's stock fell 1.8 percent to 5,370 yen at the 3 p.m. close on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The shares dropped as much as 2 percent yesterday after the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported that Sony won't sell the PS3 until November. The Tokyo-based company later made an official announcement.

The release of the PlayStation 3 was pushed back from a spring date because of a holdup in finalizing standards for Sony's Blu-ray DVD technology, said Ken Kutaragi, head of Sony's gaming unit. The delay will put Sony at least a year behind Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 game console, which began selling in the U.S. last November.

The PlayStation 3 features the Blu-ray high-definition technology and its fastest processor ever, forming a key part of Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer's strategy to use movies, music and games to spur sales of consumer electronics. Sony's announcement followed more than a month of speculation about a possible delay.

To contact the reporter on this story: Daisuke Takato in Tokyo at dtakato@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Teo Chian Wei at cwteo@bloomberg.net