It's possible. If it sells 400k a week like it did this past week. I'd say it'll sell 10 million strong.

I've got a feeling that he's playing games with the words and really does mean "sell 11 million by the end of the fiscal year" rather than "sell 11 million during the fiscal year."

As usual, there's a lot of misinformation and confusion floating around Sony's fiscal goals; let's see if we can try to clear that up. First, on the "shipped" vs. "sold" issue. Sony used to count anything they manufactured as a "sold" unit. Even if it was sitting in a Sony warehouse, it was still considered as sold. But when they released their Q2 report last year, they changed their tracking methodology. Now, only units shipped to retailers are counted as "sold"; Sony did this as a way of downgrading their PS3 sales forecast without being obvious about it. Therefore, in order to meet their current sales target of 11m PS3s in this fiscal year, Sony has to actually sell units to retailers. That puts a limit on how much channel stuffing can take place, as retailers will only accept so much extra inventory.

Looking at the statement itself:

Sony Computer Entertainment's chief executive Kazuo Hirai told the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper he was confident of fulfilling that goal despite stiff competition from Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's XBoX 360.

I think it's quite clear that Sony is sticking to their long-stated goal, 11m units (shipped to retailers) by the end of this fiscal year (March 2008). They are not changing over to 11m lifetime sales by the end of March, or the terminology would have been different. Of course, as we've been over this subject many times, Sony cannot possibly reach this target (it will require monthly sales after Christmas to average about 2 million each, or roughly 460k WEEKLY sales in some of the slowest sales months of the year. The PS3 doesn't even sell that well during the holidays!)

So I still have no idea what exactly Kaz is thinking when he makes statements like this. The only way that this could come true would be to bundle a PS3 with the sale of all DSs.

Their keeps being confusion over this.

 I really can't believe how high sony's original projections were.  I guess they were expecting games like Lair to be great, rahter than okay-ish.

 Considering the weak line-up they've got, Sony's sales have been pretty good this year imo.  If they manage to stay arround 360 sales over christmas, they stand a good chance on coming back (if the ever get any great games out - how have they got this so wrong!!).

I believe the original prediction was Sony selling 11million during the fiscal year, and something like 14million LTD.
Amazing how they seem to have quietly switched it around in the meantime, since they know they won't come close to the 11mil for just this fiscal year, and might not even make that number LTD. Pretty funny if you ask me. I also am wondering where they thought this huge demand for their console was going to come from for 2007.

This is a point that also needs to be addressed. We have a lot of newer members at VGChartz who aren't familiar with what sales look like in a non-holiday period. The numbers for all consoles will plummet after we cross over into 2008. Expect sales for all platforms to drop by about 80% in January. Here are the numbers for the PS3 from last January and February, for example:

Feb. 24: PS3 49k
Feb. 17: PS3 52k
Feb. 10: PS3 66k
Feb. 03: PS3 69k
Jan. 27: PS3 73k
Jan. 20: PS3 78k
Jan. 13: PS3 88k
Jan. 06: PS3 135k

These are worldwide weekly sales, not specific to any region. Now I expect that the PS3 will sell better in 2008 than it did in 2007, but expecting much over 100k weekly is really pushing it. If you think that the system will be able to move 400k units weekly, prepare to be disappointed.

 Because a thread started by a person who posted the above  in two different threads is going to end well...

Thing is about these figures you have to take into account that there were no PS3's  being sold in the PAL regions (which is a huge gaming area) so these figures for the console will be higher this time around. Also you have to take into account the fact that there are much more games out on the console now, a few of which i would class as AAA (R&C and Uncharted being two)...

I hope that Sony manage 11 Million consoles, it would be a great turnaround :D 

Well if they want any shot at 11 million sold by March LBP and Killzone 2 have to make their release dates.

they are going to ship that much but *most likely* not sell that much. But then again they'd be selling them to the retailers....bleh. Either way, I'm pretty sure they mean ship.