A qualified success I'd say. It's LT sales will end up decent and it'll have sold a decent amount of software. It got Sony a decent foothold in online gaming in the West (if a second place one) and it ensured Blu Ray won the format war.
But it cost too much to produce for too long vs what the market was prepared to pay and was part of a loss of market-share for Sony (I'd blame how Sony handled this gen at the beginning and how weak PSN was to begin with vs the PS3 itself really - the console was feature rich itself but let down to an extent by weak surrounding services.
From a consumer perspective though it's definitely a success - it's over 60 million in sales, has a lot of exclusives and entertainment hub features and is still showing YOY growth.
So a qualified success overall.
Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...
