Gamespot just posted an interview with Sony exec, Kaz Hirai.

The one point that struck me is this:

I think that we’ve always talked about shipping 2 million units worldwide within the calendar year. Since we’re going with three territories, we haven’t really come up with an allocation just yet. But even if you do the simple math you’re talking about less than 700,000 units per territory, per major territory, between launch and the end of the year. So even if there was some fluctuation–you give Japan more, you give the US more, what have you–you’re going to end up with some shortages.

Two million this calendar year? I thought it was two million at launch, four million by the end of the calendar year, and six million by the end of March 2007.

This does sound like a more realistic target but it’s very disappointing to see half of the expected launch volume disappear. Shortages are now nearly guaranteed during this holiday season.

The 360 sold a total of 607,000 by the end of calendar 2005, so we should still see more than triple that volume with the PS3 this holiday. But that’s probably still not enough to avoid major shortages.

Hirai: PS3 will keep–or surpass–PS2’s market share

UPDATE: Sony has corrected Kaz Hirai’s statement and said that they are still on track for their original estimates of two million at launch, four million by the end of the calendar year, and six million by the end of March 2007.