Sony Computer Entertainment will miss its sales target of 11 million PlayStation3 units sold in the financial year ending in March, analysts agree. Instead, Sony is expected to sell 8 million, 27 percent below the original mark.

Even Sony executives seem to accept that the original target is no longer within their reach, as Bloomberg reports.

Price cuts and the introduction of a cheaper model helped Sony approach its goal of selling 11 million PlayStation 3s in the year ending March. Still, analysts at Nikko Citigroup Ltd. and Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd. predict the Tokyo-based company will miss the target after being outsold by the Wii and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360.

“It’s an industry consensus that PS3 sales will fall short of the target,” said Mitsuhiro Osawa, a Tokyo-based analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities Co.

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Sony is expected to sell 8 million PlayStation 3s in the year ending March 31, lost its annual target by 27 percent, Daiwa said in a Jan. 18 report. Nintendo will probably sell 19 million Wii machines and Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft will ship 9.1 million Xbox 360 consoles, according to Daiwa.

“We haven’t made any conclusion whether we have to give it up,” Hirai said, referring to that fiscal year’s 11 million shipment target. “It depends on how aggressively dealers buy our PS3 stock.”

Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda said on Oct. 25 that Sony may miss the goal.

Only last September, SCEI president Kaz Hirai believed to be on track to meet the ambitious sales goal.

While Japanese executives are now hesitant as far as the PS3

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