In the end Sony only made a small profit on the PS3 from 2010 and onward. Yet the PS3 ended with a massive net loss over the course of the generation.

Sony never really turned the PS3 profitable it just had a few years with profit. But it actually put the PS brand as a whole back at zero when you look at profit.

Not actually catering to the handheld market when they were going with handhelds.
A lot of people bought a psp, but mostly for PMP purposes. That market evaporated when smartphones started rolling out around 2010. The psp only had games because it was popular and not the other way round... which led to vita failure. The vita mem card issue was just the final nail.

Source for what?  It was my impression when I did my research.  I clearly state that.

I'm not sure how I was hacked either.  I discovered there were a few methods when I looked into it - but I couldn’t pinpoint what specifically happened.  Sony’s customer service didn’t know either.  You’d think they could find out who it was signing in under my account - but they said they couldn’t.  Either way I’m over it.  PSN is not something I have to deal with ever again.

I don’t know why people claim Sony sold off Crash and Spyro... The games were co-published between Sony and Vivendi Universal, but the IP’s belonged to Vivendi Universal. When Activision bought out VU in (I think) 2000, they purchased the IP’s with them. Sony only had a say in the titles they published; not the IP’s as a whole.

That being said, I think Sony’s biggest mistake was trying to build a console around an architecture that had never been used in game development before, without beta testing it for themselves. The PS3 launch was clearly rushed, and it felt like it took Sony waaaaaay too long to finally get the ball rolling, even with their own first party. I loved PS3, especially after it’s first couple years, but my god was the APOCALYPS3 real in those early years.

This!

PS3 was not a failure it was an investment (or gamble) and Blu-ray and the cell processor are good (missed) technologies, but the Vita memory cards are not... Full on greedy Sony there and they lost the second pillar in the market.

Sony’s Crash marketing was brilliant.  They just assumed Crash as their mascot vs Mario which they heavily played up against.  It worked, and strangely, it still works as Crash has been plastered all over the competing consoles right after its debut generation.  Heck, I even own Crash Team Racing on my Ngage.

Also, game magazines were a bigger gaming reference tool back in the day and they rarely got into the business side of gaming.  Not to mention the demographics were much younger then and let’s face it, they don’t care about the politics of gaming.

It was a great campaign, especially when you consider just how badly PS1 beat the crap of N64. That being said though, I’m glad Sony didn’t stick with him as a mascot. Crash is long passed his prime, and really just a nostalgia figure these days, and PlayStation really doesn’t need a mascot. 

Firing Kevin. By far.

Thing is, PS3 price point hurting it too much in exchange for winning the HD video market with their format. Long run, it might have been the right choice.

The launch of the PS3 was their biggest mistake hands down. Going with yet another weird architecture and outrageous pricing allowed Microsoft to get their final breakthrough and earn a lot of jumpers. It took the PS4 done right and similar mistakes by Microsoft in turn for Sony to regain their position.