Sony Electronics said Wednesday it is delaying the debut of its PlayStation 3 video game console to November, instead of the planned spring launch date, giving Microsoft a longer head start in the market with the Xbox 360 game system it debuted last holiday season.

Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Home Entertainment, told reporters in Japan that copy protection technology and other standards for the Blu-ray high-definition DVD drive were the main culprit behind the delay, as had been rumored in recent weeks (see Sony May Delay PlayStation 3).

“As the postponement of the release of PS3 has been already factored into our consensus forecasts, the news came as little surprise,” wrote Merrill Lynch research analyst Hitoshi Kurayama in a research note.

The company has been trying to work out the Blu-ray standards with Hollywood studios, which have been increasingly gravitating toward the rival HD-DVD technology backed by Toshiba.

“I would like to apologize for revising the release date, because standardization talks on new Blu-ray technology and high-definition multimedia interfacing—the key features of the next-generation console—have taken more time than we had originally thought,” said Mr. Kutaragi.

“When we initially announced our plans to launch this spring, we had expected the standardization work on all of the technologies to be completed by last August, but there were improvements that were decided on since then,” he added.

Sony plans to have the PS3 hit store shelves within roughly the same period in Japan, North America, and Europe, just as the holiday shopping season begins. The game console will be arriving about the same time as Nintendo’s Revolution console, also planned for release late this year.

Shares of Sony dropped $0.15 to $46.36 in recent trading, while shares of Microsoft fell $0.03 to $27.20.

Shares of game makers rose on the news that the PS3 would be ready in time for the holidays, though. Electronic Arts stock climbed $1.16 to $54.10 in recent trading, while Activision shares rose $0.53 to $13.74, THQ shares increased $0.98 to $25.89, and Take-Two Interactive rose $0.33 to $16.60.

Mr. Kutaragi said that Sony remained the leading game console, with about 60 percent of the $30-billion global game market. The Tokyo-based company has shipped almost 204 million of its PlayStation systems to date.

The company has been hit by declining prices of consumer electronics and has decided to close down some unprofitable units, such as production of its Aibo robot dog. But the company has seen success with a joint venture on flat-panel LCD TVs in partnership with Samsung Electronics.

PSP Growth

Mr. Kutaragi said the company’s handheld gaming system, the PlayStation Portable (PSP), which it introduced last year, has seen success. Shipments reached 15 million units worldwide. He said that new bundles and pricing would be available this month, starting at about $200.

A white PSP is planned for debut in Japan next month, but there was no word on when it would be available in the United States. Sony and its partners are also planning many new games for the PSP, including Field Commander, The Godfather, and Syphon Filter.

The company is also dropping the prices for its PSP development kits to encourage more games to be created for the PSP.