Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) TV may not be ready for its closeup.

Back in October, the search giant’s new software, an attempt at creating an Internet television service that marries traditional cable/satellite service with Web access and viewing options, launched in October to slow sales, limited functionality and tepid reviews, in partnership with a Sony (NYSE: SNE) television and a Logitech (NASDAQ: LOGI) set-top box. Despite the woes of that soft launch, the company was planning a full launch in early 2011 integrating a wider variety of televisions and set-top boxes.

According to a report from The New York Times on Monday, though, it would appear that Google has decided the product needs more time.

The Times report says Google has listened to the poor initial reviews and is working fast to improve the software based on common complaints. But the fixes are apparently so complex that Google has asked its manufacturing partners to “delay their introductions” of Google TV products. The article also said that Google’s halt to the full rollout came as a shock to most of its partners.

Those partners are also irked by Google’s cold feet affecting their own product debuts just weeks before the Las Vegas-based Consumer Electronics Show. The expo, taking place in early January, was expected to be dominated by Google’s products, with Google TV sitting alongside the Google Chrome OS as flagship software offerings for next year.

While delaying its partners from publicly showing off Google TV televisions and set-top boxes so close to one of the tech industry’s biggest trade shows is risky, Google is wise to refine the software before trying to capture mainstream audiences. While some outlets like tech blog Engadget were impressed with the software’s core search feature — Google TV’s main selling point is its ability to search for television programming much like you search the Web, with results displayed for broadcast and cable listings as well as video options on the Internet — others, like the Times’ David Pogue and the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg, said that the search function was unpredictable and therefore not very useable.

 When coupled with Google TV devices having only limited integration with existing cable and satellite TV providers (Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) is currently the only fully service that can fully integrate with Google TV at this point), the service’s technical shortcomings need to be ironed out if it’s going to succeed to any degree.

Google still needs to clear the other major hurdle standing between Google TV and living room dominance: Every major network television channel is still blocking Google TV devices from accessing their websites. Disney’s (NYSE: DIS) ABC, News Corp.’s (NYSE: NWS) Fox, General Electric’s (NYSE: GE) NBC and CBS (NYSE CBS) have all expressed great concern with Internet television, which could eventually allow users to affect long-standing metrics associated with traditional television viewing. Earlier this year, those networks also refused to allow 99-cent rentals of their television shows on Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) relaunched Apple TV service.

Even if Google streamlines Google TV, what are they going to do to bring content providers on board?