If you've ever wondered why the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 launched so far apart, one big reason was a shortage of a very small component that only cost Sony around $0.05 per unit.

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In this month's episode of IGN Unfiltered, Ryan McCaffrey sat down with former PlayStation executive (and current Google VP) Phil Harrison to talk about the PlayStation 3 release schedule, as well as Harrison's time at Sony, Microsoft, Google, and much more.While the Xbox 360 originally launched in November of 2005, the PlayStation 3 wouldn't hit store shelves until a full year later in November of 2006, leaving many fans wondering why Sony would give Microsoft a full year head start on the HD generation of consoles.Was Sony confident it would hold the lead it generated during the lifetime of the PlayStation 2 and the release schedule was intentional, or was there more to the story? "The thing that actually slowed down production on the hardware was down to a tiny component," Harrison said, "It was the laser diode on the Blu-ray drive. It was like a $0.05 component."Harrison elaborated, "In this particular case, the shift from red laser to blue laser was actually quite a sophisticated change in the way that the optical head on a drive worked, and it was a little bit of physics and a little bit of chemistry mixed together, because it's really a crystal that you're making. And they just couldn't make enough."According to Harrison, this caused the PlayStation 3 to be released "later than I think we would have wished for." Demand for the diodes simply outstripped the supply, leading to a delayed launch date, although the target release window was originally a rather flexible "Winter."For more of the IGN Unfiltered interview with Phil Harrison, be sure to stay tuned to IGN each day this week. For more insider interviews with the best, brightest, most fascinating minds in the games industry, be sure to check out the rest of the IGN Unfiltered catalog , which includes talks with creators like Bethesda's Todd Howard Remedy writer Sam Lake , and many more.

Brian Barnett writes news, features, and wiki guides for IGN. You can get your fix of Brian's antics on Twitter ( @Ribnax ) and Instagram ( @Ribnax ).