That's a question none of us can likely answer.

Looking at the profit/loss ration for a division--and this is true of Microsoft, as well--is so simplistic as to be nearly childish.

How much brand loyalty has translated into other products sold? How much has Sony earned from Blu-Ray? How big of a boost has the PS3 been to their media services? How much have they made from media partnerships?

You can't separate different aspects of a business and expect anything close to a real-world result. It just doesn't work that way.

Judge in 2020.

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/sony-s-playstation-3-finally-turns-a-profit-699904

PS3 sales were at 37m at that time.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/127906/article.html

If we speak about hardware,console sales are about 11 billion at loss at least I think (if we think they sold it 307$ loss).Sure every year Sony made less and less loss so lets say 7-9 billion on hardware cost, but you must think before PS3 was even released,how huge cost were to make first console (THE CELL).And also on that horrible marketing etc..
So lets say 10 billion loss total on 2010.

Since there has been new models and many price cuts, I don't think profit from hardware has been that much, lets say 40m consoles on 20$ profit makes 800 million profit.

Ps3 software is now 724,382,650, not counting digital sales so lets say 1 billion. Maybe on avarage 5$ might go to Sony after all the cuts etc, so 5 billion.Sony also failed on its 3D revolution and Playstation move, tho it did bring some cash back, selling 15,5m from its release to November 2012.So maybe 300m profit?

http://www.destructoid.com/playstation-move-is-priced-to-make-a-profit-178579.phtml

I have no idea what Sony gets from Ps+,extra hardware or from its Blu-ray victory...Maybe 200m profit?

So maybe 3-4 billion loss just because of stupid launch..Sony really did learn from its mistakes.

I think if we just look at the profit/loss, no, Ps3 was not success.Well if you believe my random shit.

Here is some article I found btw.
http://www.vg247.com/2013/01/07/xbox-360-and-ps3-losses-total-8-billion-ex-sony-employee-paints-grim-future/

Dude, I'm talking about recouping losses. It's quite obvious sony has been profiting off of the ps3 for a while now on a year to year basis.

You aren't understanding what I'm saying. The fat PS3 was selling at a huge loss and even in 2010, the PS3 slim was being sold at a loss: http://www.play-mag.co.uk/general/sony-still-selling-ps3s-at-a-loss/.  The superslim is the one which is making a marginal profit. What I'm trying to say is that the overall loss incurred by the PS3 in its lifetime has not yet been recouped by the profits that it has been making in the last year or two.

Example of what I mean:

Let's assume the PS3 hardware sales somehow amounted to $1billion profit for Sony in the last two years. Taking the profit vs loss Sony has made with the PS3 since it's inception, we get $1bn - $3bn = -$2bn : An overall loss.

From a games perspective I think it was a great success, the first party games were stunning, at the pinnacle of this gens efforts imo.

From a financial perspective, it's difficult to say, but I don't think it was a huge success. They surely made some money from blu-ray and all their software, but they're still negative for the gen I'd imagine. Most of it was from the launch unfortunately, for most of the gen Sony did a tremendous job.

It profit more than GC?

Just found this: http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/8bn-the-total-losses-made-by-xbox-360-and-ps3/0108917
Looks like they didn't recoup all of their losses :/

Well the second, more recent Sony quote was very specific about 80m consoles being a success,
and Sony recently passed that mark (and will sell more PS3 consoles and games for several more years).
Both Sony and MS have monetized more opportunities via online than was possible in previous generations,
so smaller sales are to some extent viable with that extra revenue stream...
I think Sony ate alot trying to assuage the high price which was mostly down to Blue-Ray*,
but in the end they won that format war, which also helped them sell more expensive TVs, etc,
so I think that as a company it worked out fine for them... both Sony and MS are apparently NOT
dumping alot money in dev cost/ subsidized new consoles this gen, which is probably at least in part due
to the lack of financial profit in last gen, but that approach seems to be working out OK for them.
* I wonder how HD-DVD drives MS sold for X360 to have it become useless, failing to defeat Sony's push for BR?
Which was a bizarre goal for MS in the first place, since which format won is hardly directly relevant to their business.

Beyond that, they pretty much took Microsoft to a draw, MS would have been a bit better off without RROD costs,
and their wasted efforts in Japan, but they both took it about even in the end... With MS already having
major losses from the original XBOX while Sony was much more profitable from that era and it's legacy sales.
Reputation wise, Sony did very poor in US market initially, but seemed to salvage that, with the late PS3 games
like The Last of Us really seeming to raise their reputation and bring home the potential of the PS3 to the masses.
More broadly, the focused console and even PC gaming market is just much more limited compared to
smartphones and all that, but somebody else having broad success doesn't negate the success of a smaller market.

I do think the mobile market is most heavily impacted by smartphones/etc, and that already hit Vita's success.
Sony should probably just integrate Vita into phones, or at least sell Vita-compatable phones that you plug
auxiliary controls into/slide them into a controller shell, with a consistent HW spec that perhaps is upgraded every two years with full BW-compatability to the previous gen game-phone. Sony can also sell phone-less 'tablet' versions with integrated game controls/rumble/etc (but also offering tablet functionality) just to catch all aspects of market.

There is no correct answer It is and it is not. It depends on your point of view.

For fans it certainly is because they buy every system from Sony no matter what. So numbers dont really mean alot to them just the games. And tbh the PS3 has an excellent library.

For objective people and I am pretty sure even Sony it is not. Because it lost to Nintendo and most importantly to the former newcomer Microsoft. (the PS3 has now sold more than the 360 but the fact that it took SO long and that the Xbox went from 24m to 80m shows what I mean) Now 7 years are over and the PS3 sits at 80m. 70m less than the PS2.

If the PS3 will be lucky it will reach 120m which would still be 30m less than the PS2. (but I highly doubt it will reach 120m because it took the console 7years to reach 80m while it was new fresh and totally hyped with a at least 5 years of blockbuster games. How will it reach another 40m when its "old" and probably no Sony games will come out in 2015+? Sony has to kill the PS3 to avoid having a Sony own competitor to the PS4 system.

Sony's PS3 is basically the only loser this gen.

So again it depends on what one defines as a success.

P.S. I went with maybe. Because everything else is just opinion not fact.