Sony big cheese Jack Tretton has told Bloomberg that last month’s Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami which ravaged the eastern side of the island nation has affected production of Sony’s next generation handheld console, NGP. As a result, Sony may have to stagger the release of the device.

Previously planned for simultaneous release in Asia, North America and Europe in time for 2011’s Christmas holiday season, the PSP replacement instead may only be introduced to a single region this year. Tretton declined to specify which region this would be.

Wedbush Securities video-game analyst Edward Woo told Bloomberg that a delay would put Sony even further behind Nintendo in the next generation handheld wars, with the 3DS hitting retail last month already. “As it is now, it’s already going to be almost eight months behind Nintendo, and a delay could push that to a year,” said Woo.

Last month’s earthquake and tsunami resulted in an estimated 27,000 lost lives, and around 25 trillion yen (R2 trillion +). The 9-magnitude quake has caused Sony to shut down a number of key manufacturing plants in Northern Japan for repair, and further breakdowns in supply chains caused by the disaster have caused delays at production locations not directly affected.