Sony has just announced that they'll be postponing the Japanese release of Skype for the PSP which was originally set for late January, due to some issues with Sony's official microphones. It seems that the microphone's components failed in meeting some of Skype's necessary certifications.

Sony didn't want to launch their latest service without official peripherals to accompany it. With this, they decided to put the release on hold for the time being. No official date has been set for the Japanese launch. Instead Sony said, "Solutions to enable users to start using Skype features and services on their PSP are being sought for and will be announced in due course."

For those of you who live in the US or Europe, consider yourselves to be lucky since the corresponding PSP Skype launch won't be affected. Sony added that it "will make no difference to the European and USA launch, which will coincide with the end of January firmware upgrade."

Whew! With Japan being the only one affected, it looks like the PSP Skype launch is still something we can all look forward to.