Is the PS3 a failure?

[Alby_da_Wolf]

Not absolute record for HW sales, but record sales for a second ranking home console in a gen, excellent SW sales and still selling a lot of it, often being first in weekly SW sales even now.
So quite successful for sales.
Successful at keeping the PS brand relevant too, helping PS4 take-off.
About profit, well, it suffered huge initial costs and losses and it stopped losing on HW during Q2 2010, while obviously it earned on SW since the start, so, it's difficult to tell, SW is still selling, so to tell if it's been a success we need to know if at the end of its life, SW 1st party sales and 3rd party royalyties, and the part of HW not sold at a loss will have been enough to recoup losses and interests on them. Difficult to tell because Sony, like MS, doesn't reveal profits or losses of a single product, it has always put all PS products overall and also together with other consumer electronics in its balance sheet. Sometimes it stated annual losses of its division weren't due to PS3 anymore, but to PS products not profiting as predicted due to exchange rates and higher losses from other products, but this doesn'tell us much about whether initial investments and losses have been or will be recouped.