From the Bloomberg.jp article. Google translate is your friend.

The gist of it, apparently, Sony intended to ship 15M PS5s by March 2021, but due to yield issues that has been revised down by 4M units to 11M PS5s by March 2021. The analysts also says that the price of the PS5 is expected to be $399 and $449 for the digital and standard SKUs respectively.

It is clear that Sony has revised down the production volume of the next-generation game machine "PlayStation (PS) 5" to be released within the year by 4 million units in this term (the term ending March 2021) to about 11 million units. Became. The production yield of the specially designed integrated circuit "System on Chip (SOC)", which corresponds to the heart of PS5, is not stable.

Because the information was not disclosed, multiple parties revealed it on condition of anonymity. In July, the company informed its parts suppliers that it would double its production volume, considering that the consumption of nesting due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection would support demand even after the year-end sales season.

According to the person concerned, the production volume has been forced to be reviewed because the yield of SOC is sluggish at about 50%. He said that the yield is improving, but the quality has not reached a stable level. A Sony spokeswoman declined to comment.

Last week, Microsoft sold the "Xbox Series X" for $ 499 (Japan's domestic price is 49,980 yen) and the "Series S" without a disk drive for $ 299 (32,980 yen). Announced to be released on the 10th of March. There is a view that the announcement of affordable prices poses a threat to Sony.

Sony is expected to announce details such as price and release date at the PS5 related video event to be held on the 17th. Masahiro Wakasugi, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, expects the cheapest case to be priced at $ 449 for a model with a disk drive and $ 399 for a model without a disk drive.

confirmed to be fake.

EDIT: Ok, nevermind, I misunderstood what the article was talking about.

They wanted 15 million by march 2021? That's mental. Makes me guess it's credibility from the start tbh.

For comparison, the PS4 shipped 7.5 million units by March 2014.
So Sony was previously expecting to ship double that amount for PS5 units through March 2021, before lowering it to the point where they now expect to ship just an additional 3.5 million PS5 units for March 2021.

...I really think Sony is overestimating demand here.

Yup, that's crazy... but this is Bloomberg, they don't usually peddle uncorroborated rumors. So its the closest to accurate we can get.

Yup... then again, the PS4 was stock limited all the way through to around April 2014. And I'm sure sony ha a way of gauging demand. What I really take from this is that from whenever they decided to up shipments o 15M, they must have also decided on their pricing. The only way they sell that many units are if their pricing is relatively aggressive.

Some enlightenment

That may be the case, but how low are they willing to go with the price if they originally expected to ship THAT many? Especially when the Series S is going for as low as $299? It may not mean much in Europe and Asia, where PlayStation dominates, (Well, if you don't count Nintendo anyways) but in North America, where Xbox can actually, seriously compete, that could really tip the scales in Microsoft's favor.

As for your first point: Yes, the PS4 stock was limited during the first 6 months of its lifespan, but I doubt that demand for the system in its early stages was as high as 11-15 million units shipped through March 2014. 11-15 million in it's first 4 1/2 months?!? That would be at level the Switch is selling now. There's no way demand was that high. And I seriously doubt that it's that high now, especially when the PS5 will be up against more competition than the PS4 was at the time. Microsoft, specifically the Xbox division, is in a FAR better place now than they were in late 2013, both from a PR and pre-launch standpoint. After that Xbox One reveal disaster, they have nowhere to go but up, which is the direction they appear to be headed. I fully expect Xbox Series sales to be notably higher than the Xbox One was during its first few months. Those extra sales have to come from somewhere. Plus, there's also the Switch, which is just on an absolute 'nother level. (Especially compared to the Wii + 3DS.)

I just think that Sony has more going against them this time around than they did during the PS4's pre-launch phase, where I think they're setting themselves up for disappointment if they expect actual demand to be as high as they're projecting.

Its production, not shipment.

15M produced by 03 2021 is probably like 12.5-13.5M shipped, which is definitely aggressive but not crazy considering where demand will be for this in the launch frame.

Think 9-10M shipped for Nov/Dec and ~3M shipped for Jan-Mar.

Now its slashed to 11M produced, so maybe 9-10M shipped. 7-8M in Nov/Dec and ~2M Jan-Mar. PS4 with a staggered launch did 7M in the same frame, so this is still a massive 40% increase over that.

Sony shipped 7.5M PS4s by March 31 2014, as you are aware. This article suggests that they were aiming to double that number to 15M. But now landing at 11M. So basically just 3.5M units more tan they shipped PS4s in the same time frame.

The switch doesn't affect sales of the P/Xbox consoles any more than they affect its own sales. So I don't think that's a real issue here.

NA represents only 35% of PS4 total sales, but almost 65% of the Xb1 total sales. Sony could very likely be planning on sending only like 4 of those 1M nits to NA, and the rest to everywhere else. Xbox doesn't have as strong a presence outside NA as sony, this could just be sony playing to the strengths they know they have.

Lastly... at launch (especially at launch) console sales are driven mostly by the core base of the platform. Basically, there is a certain number of people that will be willing to buy a PS5/XBSX/S as long as those units are available and it hits a certain price. I think Sony would be able to sell 11M consoles in its first 6 months on the market if stock is available and the price is right. And we don't even know that the PS4 couldn't have accomplished the same feat, or that the Switch couldn't have sold even more than it did, all we know is that they were all stock limited.

They original plan is to double the production from 6 million to 10 million https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ps5-production-has-reportedly-doubled-but-2020-supply-issues-are-still-possible/