Sony Playstation 3 delay might end up helping Microsoft Xbox 360 sales

Microsoft must be smiling today. Sony has confirmed that they are delaying the launch of their Playstation 3 gaming console to November 2006, which means that there is a one-year gap between these two next generation gaming consoles.

A lot of gamers had reportedly delayed their purchases of the Xbox 360 as they wanted to check out the PS3 and this delay could perhaps lead to more purchases of Xbox 360 in the coming months.

Sony has said that the delays are mostly due to the issues of implementation of anti-piracy technologies in the Blu-Ray drives, which would be powering the next generation Playstation console.

Sony has already said that the games for the Playstation 3 would only ship on Blu-Ray discs, which further complicates the process for them. They are betting heavily on the success of their developed format, which is going to compete with Toshiba’s HD DVD format in the coming months in the market.

Market analysts are amused on the fact that if Blu-Ray fails to win the war for the standardization of next generation DVD storage format, what would happen to the PS3 consoles and their users. Would they end up using a proprietary format, which won’t be popular otherwise?

The good thing however is the fact that Sony PS3 would support all the Playstation games and would also function more than just a gaming console. Sony would be promoting the PS3 as a home entertainment console, which does more than just play games. And this is a huge step in promoting their Blu-Ray format for next generation storage standard.