I guess that is a bit of a tricky question.
Sony failed the PS3 during the R&D phase. They were foolish; they were not keeping track of per unit production cost during research and development of the hardware (they had to cut out the second HDMI, 2 Ethernet ports, and 2 usb ports and were still selling at a 33% loss per unit at launch). They also failed at making the architecture developer friendly to help mitigate cost of making HD games, and they did not get development kits out early enough or helping studios learn the new architecture. This all led to a lack luster library of games for the two years of the PS3 and damaged a ton of brand image with customers and relationships with developers.
But after some time, Sony succeeded at reducing the console's price by a whopping $300 and saved the console by greatly expanding its exclusive game library.
Going forward, Sony seems to have learned a great humbling lesson from this, shown in the development of the PS Vita thus far; Vita's research and development focused on making hardware in accordance with what developers want. This helps strengthen developer relationships, educate developers early, and gets developers excited to make software for hardware that was designed specifically for their needs. And, they set a target specific price of production so the console would be sold at little or no loss at a reasonable price point ($249).
They also have mentioned that the PS4 will use a similar approach to make a more reasonably priced console at launch. The set price will certainly be higher than the Vita (my best guess is $399ish).
