IMHO, Cell and Blu-ray were both harmful for PS3 as it is now. They made the system the second choice for the consumer (for it's price) and the second choice for the developer (for the difficulty to develop and the need to create ports, i.e., the size of the game versions can't be that different).
But the blu-ray drive was beneficial for Sony as a whole, since it solidified their lead in the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format war. The low speed of the drive falls in line with this thought: the PS3's blu-ray player is more a weapon in the format war than a weapon in the gaming front.
I believe that PS3 in itself could be seen like this: Sony risked their financial health in the beginning of PS3's life cycle by introducing the hard-to-deal-and-expensive technologies because, then, they can have an edge in the second half of PS3's life cycle.
IMHO, it all depends at the situation of the market in the next few years:
1. will the developers be able to really use the cell and the blu-ray player?
2. If yes, will Nintendo and Microsoft react accordingly? Will either one or both of them launch a "better" HW, i.e., one that can do things the PS3 can't?
If the first answer is no, PS3 should be a major fail.
If the second answer is no, PS3 is bound to have a bright future: it'll have a fine user base and will do more then the rest. If yes... who knows?
In other words, Sony is trying one specific approach, making M$ and Nintendo to "catch up" with her. Then Sony will have the huge edge of an actual user base. Of course, that's just obvious because they never hid the fact that PS3 will have a 10y life-cycle.
"How hard would it be to randomize facial features and skin tones? That's what we want, to feel like we're killing hundreds of different people. Not a bunch of clones or twins. We want to know, deep down, that there are hundreds of grieving mothers out there, lamenting the terror of our dreaded blade."
Cracked.com ( http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_p4.html ), saying the Hardcore gamers' dark truth. And it's Hell True.
