March 15 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp., the world's largest maker of video-game players, is maintaining its forecast of selling 6 million PlayStation 3 units for the fiscal year that ends in March, a spokesman said. Sony will provide estimates on May 13 for shipments of PlayStation 3 for the fiscal year that ends in March 2008, Nick Sharples said today in an interview at the Cebit trade fair in Hanover, Germany. Sony will start a beta test in April for a new interactive avatar-based community that will be integrated in the company's PlayStation, Sharples told reporters at a press conference in Hanover. Tokyo-based Sony had to postpone the PlayStation 3's European debut after a parts shortage for the machine's Blu-ray DVD player. Sharples said sales in Europe will start March 23. To contact the reporter on this story: Holger Elfes in Dusseldorf at helfes@bloomberg.net . Source Bloomberg This might mean 2 things 1) Sony knows that they cannot sell another 4 million consoles until March 31, and re-arranges it's target for next March or 2)Might be a typo and Sony is being (again) way too confident.

It reads like a Bloomberg typo. They will probably estimate what they think will sell by March 2008 though.

Fiscal year = one year... it might mean that Sony intends to ship 6 million units *on top* of what they've already sold, during the 12 month March-to-March period. As in, that 6 million figure only includes sales within this period. If they make the current 6 million shipped goal (although I personally think that's doubtful), that would mean 12 million consoles shipped by March '08, which is a reasonable assumption. My personal prediction? They'll have shipped 10 million by then.

Can that be true? i mean, if they say they can ship 6m units from november till march, why should they go back now and say that they will just ship another 6m units in a whole year? of course they couldn't ship 6m till march, but they would really have major problems if they couldn't ship more then 12m units until march 2008. if that would be true, there would be no question who ranks number three in this console war...

6 million consoles will be on the market when the Europe launch ... is launched at the end of March 2007 May 13 2007, Sony will look at there sales and see how many consoles are still on the shelf or in the consumers hands and they will make an estimate to how many will be on the market for next fiscal year ending March 2008. These are *shipped* numbers.