The PS3 almost shut down the gaming division of the company, it's tough to get much worse than that.

Wait what happened with the PS3? I didn't have one and wasn't around video game news when it came out?

Vita, or more accurately, not supporting the Vita.

It has an absolutely abysmal launch. That said, it did eventually best 360 in hardware sales despite:

1. Having a garbage launch.

2. Coming out a year later.

3. Not having as much software sold.

4. 360 having many multiple-unit buyers in its userbase due to RRoD.

The main factors that returned a bit of edge to PS3 was the inclusion of a Blu-ray Driver and free online. When compared to Vita, the PS3 was a shining success.

- The Vita, both with the memory cards and the insane lack of marketing support from the get-go. It was a smooth transition to officially ceasing to support it with software a short time later. To say they gave up is something of a misnomer. The effort was never what it should have been to begin with.

- PS3 cost them. I had no problem with it personally, ( well, outside of the shaky first 18-24 months, when 3rd party titles often looked noticeably inferior to the 360 versions ). I loved what it offered, and never felt like I had been grifted as a customer. But in general, the price point was off-putting to many, and they were still selling it at a big loss.

-Not properly securing PSN, which lead to the well publicized shutdown in 2011. To my knowledge, nobody was actually personally affected as far as their losing money from their credit cards was concerned, but it was a blow to them in terms of PR. Although I tend to think the overall ramifications to Sony and the PS brand were negligible, it was a big, stupid, black eye.

Those are the most obvious greatest hits. So obvious they're scarcely worth mentioning among the VGC crowd. There are other things I haven't personally liked which don't necessarily qualify as mistakes that have impacted the company in a significant way. Just for example: The Vita memory card failure rate. Especially the 64gb model. It wasn't enough that they cost an unreasonable amount ( In Canada, a 64gb card was about $230 with tax.....HA!) , they had to be as unreliable as possible as well. Way to fuck over your loyal customers you jackasses.

Vita cards had a high failure rate? I've had the same functioning 32gb since launch, and a 3-year-old 64gb. Never had an issue.

Yes, that's correct. I have bought 6 32gb Vita cards and 2 have failed on me. Verified Amazon reviews have made mention of the card problems for the 64gb variant. I think Kresnik, another Vita hardcore, would back me up to some degree. It's not an easy one to verify, but evidence does exist.

damn I made an account just to voice my opinion

Not buying crash is definitely a big one. Spyro is w/e. but crash became a house hold name quickly in one generation. it was good competition to mario. way better than sonic ever was.

tho. the biggest has to be the PS3. they decided to make alien technology with it. cell processor. and seperate RAM pools. instead of using the same old PS2 architecture or anything really would have worked fine if it had a powerful enough GPU like the 360. the console was so hard to make games for it struggled to get any games until 2010. any game was before that did not run very well. most games were running at like 20 fps. yes eventually we got good games. but it single handily destroyed everything the PS2 built. not to mention it was a year late

Sony didn't lose much money on vita. because they never invested in it to begin with. it has phone parts. nothing developed in house. they didn't lose money on first party titles because they made none or form any studios or partnerships just for the vita.

the PS3 was a huge failure. it almost killed the entire company and whoever decided it should have been designed that way denied many of us of half a generation worth of games. it was also a big factor to a lot of studios closing down because they were so used to PS1/PS2 hardware which were basically the same so that they just didn't bother making PS3 games because it was too hard and expensive.

also instead of developing software emulation over time they decided to put PS2 parts on the old phat ps3 which I can imagine added hundreds of millions in cost of development.

PS3 Pros

good HDMI, Blu ray

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PS3 cons

cell processor, generally weak GPU because they depended on cell processor , trying to Frankenstein a backwards compatible console. seperate Ram pools. tho mostly the cell processor it was just atrocious design.  

If you are willing to forget that the PS3 nearly bankrupted the Playstation brand then sure it did fantastic. The PS3 litteraly burned all the profits made by the PS1 and PS2. Sure Vita didn't sell much, but it didn't cost Sony much either.

Yes, I am 😀