OP is clearly mentioning other consoles so youre the one spinning it by limiting its comparison to other even more successful systems when theres no need to do that other than show PS3 is a bad light since thats the only way it is possible to show the 4th highest home console in history in a bad light.

My main disagreement was with your third point calling it a brand failure. It wasnt even close. Infact the PS4's success is largely due to the message sony sent via the PS3's life and is why people have faith in the games that will be coming, even though theres not many now. PS3 will always be there for that comparison.

Sony lost around $300 per console sold at launch. Sony lost billions on the PS3. Not to mention Krazy Ken funneling money to PS3 development. It cost them so much just to keep market share. The cost to produce those PS3s were just too much. If the cycle wasn't less than 8 years it would have been even worse. I don't think I can justify calling it a success. I am sure Sony would call it a success, but are probably grumbling under their breath that it could have been so much more.

No, definitely not.

It depends one what one considers a failure.

Yes and no doesn't answer it either.

I am confused the fat ps3 had great sales it tracked ahead of the 360 year for year , like the sales were good everyone paints them as abysmal and terrible when they werent

Also the Wii sold 100m , 360 sold 85 and ps3 sold 85m, thats 270m consoles for ps3 getting 70%market share it would have had too sell 205m , however accounting for wii being mega succesfull regardless of how amazing the ps3 was ( wii success was diff from ps3 and ps2 ) if you pegg the wii selling 60m and the 360 selling 40m, ps3 would have had to sell 300m consoles , last gen the gaming buz grew

Commercially - No
Financially - Somewhat/yes

The console sold very well and was enjoyed by many people, but it bled Sony for far too many years before it became profitable.

^This. Im glad someone sees it for more than just number of units sold.

Dont get me wrong people, I really liked the PS3 but from a business perspective it wasnt good.

Not quite the same. The Wii was radically different from the GameCube. The PS4 builds on what made the PS3 great.

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.