The six-month delay could impact the Sony Corp. group's business rehabilitation plans because the PlayStation 3 is key to the group's business recovery.
Development of the copy protection technology has fallen behind schedule as consumer electronics makers and movie companies have been unable to work out the details.
Other core parts, including the Cell high-performance chip, are believed to have been developed on schedule.
Featuring the Cell, which came about through joint efforts by the Sony group, Toshiba Corp. and IBM Corp., as well as a Blu-ray Disc drive, the PlayStation 3 is expected to enable users to not only play game and movie software but also download and view high-quality videos on the Internet.
Sony Computer Entertainment announced last May that the successor to the PlayStation 2, the world's best-selling video game console, would be launched this spring. More than 100 million PlayStation 2 consoles have been shipped worldwide to date.
Among rival products, Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 was released late last year. Nintendo Co. plans to start selling its next-generation video game console, code-named Revolution, this year.