How many times have we heard the promise of a simultaneous worldwide launch from every console maker? (answer: a LOT)
It was absolutely not just a BRD issue. There are virtually no games finished to launch with, even if they did launch in Spring. There would be a couple titles, but then the system would be dead for 6 months while developers caught up. How the heck would developers finish games without final dev kits?
BRD is part of it, but they didn't evolve game development any faster either. If the BRD issues were resolved tomorrow, they still couldn't do Spring because the dev kits wouldn't allow it to happen.
Anyway, I'm skeptical. They would love to do a worldwide launch. I think there will be territorial delays by a few weeks. Sorry Europe.

I'm not confident in their "2 million" for launch figure, and I think we'll see a shortage through the holiday.
The cue to Nintendo in all of this is simple... Expect "something" from Sony in November. Expect Halo 3 from MS. Since Revolution is easier to make, ramp up production and outdo Sony in volume. They will sell through if they make them. I mean, it's only the launch window and Sony will catch up, but I think they can be as aggressive as they were with the DS launch and it'd pay off.