And if XOne was still at $499 with the only Kinect Bundle available, it would have ended like Sega Dreamcast. But, we know we can't make history with 'IF'.

PS3 had a lot more competition from MS and Nintendo compared to PS2;  XBox and GC offered a really weak competition, and PS2 was released before both rivals, getting immediately more 3rd party support.  On the other hand, PS3 was released 1 full year after X360 in NA and Jap, and 16 months later in Europe, at a very expensive price.   Of course it couldn't do as PS2= Sony big mistake ---> Lesson learnt ---> PS4 ---> Domination. 

To be noted : PS3 sold better than 360 every year apart from 2008 !  PS3 won 2007-2009-2010-2011-2012-2013-2014 ! 360 only won 2008 ;)

For gamers it was not. For Sony it surely was.

83 million is the lowest number Sony has ever hit. This speaks volumes about the companies ability to bounce back and still make amazing numbers. Content is everything.

Years 1 - 4, absolutely and undoubtedly, yes it was an utter failure.

However since Uncharted 2, Sony have been on a role with very little turbulence along the way.

The ps3 didn't do as well as the ps2, but it's still a successful console.

I think PS3 is a failure only if we compare with PS2 sales, but in other hand PS2 is best selling console ever.

Depends on the viewpoint...

as a gaming machine: no
as a commercial product: yes

Exactly my thoughts.

The ps3 is a failure because sony screwed up the console since it launched not only because the sales but because they were so arrogant to sell the console at a huge price which at the same time they were incurring in huge losses due to very high manufacturing cost. I'm sure they would have been the winner of last generation if it wasn't for sony arrogant decisions, that being said, ps3 did what none of the console before it and current would have done if they were priced at 599 since it launched and that's selling more than 80m, any other console would have failed.

For Sony it may very well be a failure since it might not have made them profits or not as much profits as they wanted, but it indeed ended up performing better than what people originally thought and it ended up in second place (even if barely), but once you consider that it came out a year after the 360 at a 600 dollar price tag, and with the tipical campaign made by fanboys of "the PS3 has no games!", then getting that second place is quite the achivement, (especially if you consider that it was never cheaper than the 360).

but really what mostly interest me is if it was a succes for the PS3 gamers like myself, and in that regard it was a huge succes, so much Western/Japanese exclusives, that i still havent played all the already released exclusive games, and i am still excited for the upcoming PS3 exclusives of 2015 like Tales of Zestiria.