It appears that Sony has finally started to come back to reality with the rest of the gaming world and have publicly admitted that a delay of the PlayStation 3 is possible. A Sony representative mentioned to Japanese website, Sankei Web, that the console's Blu-ray drive is the likely culprit to cause a delay. According to the Sony rep, the Blu-ray drive's design was expected to be completed by the end of last year; however, that has not occurred yet.

In order for Sony to stay on course with their spring release schedule, mass deliveries of Blu-ray drives would have needed to be delivered by the end of February in order to start production lines to fill the retail channels by the end of May. Because of the Blu-ray drive design delays, this event has not happened yet.

"The high-quality graphics of Blu-ray is essential to the Playstation 3. If the built-in [Blu-ray drive] is late, postponement is a possibility."

Kouichi Hamamura, President of magazine publisher and game developer, Enterbrain, said it is very unlikely that Sony will be able to launch the Playstation 3 by Spring.

"If they don’t start accepting orders from retail stores at the beginning of this month, it will be difficult to release [the Playstation 3] during the long holiday period in May."

Sony: Playstation 3 delay is possible [PS3 Focus]