Sony held their 2Q financial briefing yesterday in Tokyo, and while they didn't have good news for stockholders, they did have some encouraging news for gamers. Japan's Mainichi Interactive reports today that Sony Chief Financial Officer Noboyuki Oneda spoke briefly about the company's target to ship 6 million consoles worldwide by the end of the fiscal year (March 31, 2007).

"We don't believe this is a difficult target," Oneda calmly stated.

Although Sony continually reasserts this claim almost on a weekly basis, industry insiders and an assortment of big-name analysts have made their doubts and suspicions clear. Obviously, they're basing those suspicions on Sony's drastic cutting down of available PS3s for 2006 (down to 2 million), and this week, Famitsu publisher Enterbrain predicted Sony would only sell about 4.13 million PS3s by the end of the fiscal term, placing Sony behind the Nintendo Wii. Enterbrain did, however, predict the PS3 to "win the war" by the end of 2007.

But once again, you've heard it straight from the horse's mouth: "it's not a difficult target." Well, it better not be.