The only option I see that Sony would have did with PS3 was to sell it with a even higher price tag. They have sold less consoles, but every console would have done profit, and Sony wouldn't bleed as much as they bleeded even being in a worse position in generation.
Sony marketed PS3 as a high-end machine that it really was at the time(and still being, but not so much) and to that publlic. In the beginning of it's life it wasn't a mainstream machine. The market for high-end products would have accepted PS3 pretty well at a 1000$ price tag, it would still being the best value in BD players at the time and PS brand power would still move enough machines to BD be format winner.
And this price could be less hurting with several combos with other Sony products. Like buying a 40 LCD+Cyber-Shot+PS3 for 20% less that it would be everything separated
A person that was up to pay 600$ dollars at the time would be up as well to buy a 1000$ machine. With time violent price drops in the possiblity of staying HW profitable or at least
breaking even would have to come faster. 3rd party support could be worse, but, the strong 1st studio they have know would have to come earlier.
I'm not graduated in administration, but I believe there was many ways to avoid this loss, but every one of them would mean being in a worse position in generation at least in the beggining.