They did write off a huge amount of money due to RROD, I must admit I'm not convinced its financially successful. I'm not a wii fan but to my eyes only Nintendo have made what I would call a financially successful console. They sold a low cost console with a huge profit and also made a ton of money from software, they put little investment in any sort of infrastructive like xbox live etc, so their costs were low. The wii has run out of steam now though.
Personally I don't care about financial success. Happy to take any subsidies to my gaming habit from any company. I loved the original xbox, truly fantastic hardware for its time and some of my best gaming memories with some brilliant games where as wii has done next to nothing for me, with very few games worth playing. Dreamcast was incredible but clearly a failed console.
For the next generation I'm happy to see all three companies fighting for marketshare and cutting their profits so I can play games on the cheap.
