During the press conference before Tokyo Game Show Sony Computer Entertainment President Andrew House announced a sales target for the PS4 that surprised many, as the company plans to ship five million PS4 units before the end of the fiscal year in March. He explained the reasons behind that lofty estimate as part of an interview on the Japanese site Weekly ASCII Plus.

At Gamescom in Europe in August we announced that at that time we had received over one million preorders. We achieved a very significant milestone. Afterwards the positive interest from the users continued to grow, so we set a large goal.

We made such a positive assessment because the hardware is 10 times as powerful as the PS3, but it still has an affordable price. Because of that, it has received a very positive reaction in the American market that is sensitive to pricing.

Another point is that PS4 is a full fledged multi-functional entertainment device out of the box. When the PS3 was originally released it allowed to enjoy the latest games and Blu-ray media, but it was very much limited to games. This time you can enjoy an outstanding and responsive UI and the variety of entertainment services of the PlayStation Network  and the like from the get go. Because of this we think that we can increase the market share greatly from an early stage.

House also talked about Gaikai's cloud gaming service that is planned to debut in North America next year, mentioning that there could be a beta before the service actually starts.

Probably at the beginning we'll operate it as a beta test. The actual titles and the methods of purchase are still being planned at this stage.

What do you think? Will Sony manage to hit the five million shipments target by March? Things seem to be going well at the moment, both in Japan and in the west, so they actually might.