Ps3 is a succes if you look at where they came from. The comback they made is impressive.

But looking at it from a different perspective.. 5th, 6th to 7th gen. The ps3 underperformed

Yes, Best exclusives of its GEN.

I'm pretty sure they began profiting off the console a while ago...

but even with the current profitability of the console, I don't believe they have been able to recoup the intial losses.

Thanks Jay520 :D

It is now financially and will still generate a lot of revenue in it's golden years.
And although it wasn't in the beginning it made quick work of the HD-DVD / Blu-ray war.

as in overall profit. 

The only success from the PS3 was that Sony could learned from having made mistakes and setting up the PS4.

PS4 will rule the 8th-gen console war and I could see them outselling the competition 2-1. The only wild card is not Nintendo or Microsoft but cloud gaming and PC gaming. If PC gaming can transition to the living room that might make console gaming obsolete.

Objectively speaking, Sony completely lost their market dominance from the PS2-era because of the PS3. Yikes. But I would still argue that the huge flop out of the gate has led Sony to where they are today. It has been a struggle but the PS3 has definitely become a success in it's own right as the current generation has progressed, especially when comparing to where they were 3/4/5 years ago. Perhaps not a major financial success for Sony in the short term, but in recent years they've been able to re-establish the Playstation brand as a huge name in gaming and it's also given them plenty of insight into consumers' and developers' needs/wants in regards to the development of the PS4. Sony is in an ideal position going into the next generation, and that's attributable to the PS3.

yeah but that doesn't mean they have recouped all of the losses incurred by the PS3! A business could make $10000 loss in one year and just make a $10 profit in the next year.  It's still an overall loss and Sony has lost a lot of money over the past few years.