It has an absolutely abysmal launch. That said, it did eventually best 360 in hardware sales despite:

1. Having a garbage launch.

2. Coming out a year later.

3. Not having as much software sold.

4. 360 having many multiple-unit buyers in its userbase due to RRoD.

The main factors that returned a bit of edge to PS3 was the inclusion of a Blu-ray Driver and free online. When compared to Vita, the PS3 was a shining success.

damn I made an account just to voice my opinion

Not buying crash is definitely a big one. Spyro is w/e. but crash became a house hold name quickly in one generation. it was good competition to mario. way better than sonic ever was.

tho. the biggest has to be the PS3. they decided to make alien technology with it. cell processor. and seperate RAM pools. instead of using the same old PS2 architecture or anything really would have worked fine if it had a powerful enough GPU like the 360. the console was so hard to make games for it struggled to get any games until 2010. any game was before that did not run very well. most games were running at like 20 fps. yes eventually we got good games. but it single handily destroyed everything the PS2 built. not to mention it was a year late

Sony didn't lose much money on vita. because they never invested in it to begin with. it has phone parts. nothing developed in house. they didn't lose money on first party titles because they made none or form any studios or partnerships just for the vita.

the PS3 was a huge failure. it almost killed the entire company and whoever decided it should have been designed that way denied many of us of half a generation worth of games. it was also a big factor to a lot of studios closing down because they were so used to PS1/PS2 hardware which were basically the same so that they just didn't bother making PS3 games because it was too hard and expensive.

also instead of developing software emulation over time they decided to put PS2 parts on the old phat ps3 which I can imagine added hundreds of millions in cost of development.

PS3 Pros

good HDMI, Blu ray

--------------

PS3 cons

cell processor, generally weak GPU because they depended on cell processor , trying to Frankenstein a backwards compatible console. seperate Ram pools. tho mostly the cell processor it was just atrocious design.  

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/251038-theres-no-profit-margin-microsoft-xbox-one-x

This gives a good insight in the total net losses of Playstation from 2000 to 2011. They actually ended on a net loss. 

As you can see shot really hit the fan when the PS3 launched. It took Sony more than half a decade to turn the massive losses the PS brand suffered back to a small profit. Yet at the end of 2011 it was not even near 2004 levels. So the PS3 made a nett loss big enough to vaporise the profit of the most succesfull console ever made.

That's not exactly accurate, though, is it? That also includes other products that were losing money that Sony coupled with the gaming division, even when it started to become profitable. Granted, I can believe it probably burnt through all the profits the PS1 made, but I highly doubt it was both. 

Well actually it does, thats why I cut it off. 

The rest of your post is pretty much held together by your erroneous comment that they didn't develop IP for the PSP. Once you cut that from your original comment, the rest of what you wrote falls away too.

Now, if everything you wrote hinged on the idea that Sony developed new IP, with existing IP, for the PSP, and to an extent the Vita, but then failed to capitalise on said IPs by not structuring a larger brand identity behind them, then yeah I would agree with you.

But you said they didnt develop new IP for the PSP, and everything else you wrote is in an effort to backup that claim.

And thats incorrect.

If you are willing to forget that the PS3 nearly bankrupted the Playstation brand then sure it did fantastic. The PS3 litteraly burned all the profits made by the PS1 and PS2. Sure Vita didn't sell much, but it didn't cost Sony much either.

Can I get a source for this? I understand the PS3 was troubled at the start but that sounds insane.

Imagine it's price if it had a comparable graphics card.  $800 at launch? 

My point was it didn't give Sony an advantage in the market putting so much into the Cell. They realized this and went more standard components for PS4 which is raking in money.

Yes, I agree, and that's my point. If they made online play part of PS+ back then would have had billions more in revenue to offset losses.

Man, you can interpret it as you want to, but "and in a quite a few regards, the 360 also beat the PS3" does in no way, shape or form mean that it has to be about sales.

But maybe you missed the rest of my post, because that wasn't really particularly important - the Wii won the 7th gen, despite the PS2 dominating the 6th. And the Wii U completely bombed despite being the follow up to the hugely succesful Wii. Thus showing that consoles buyers are rather prone to switching platforms.

I really don't get what you are on about. I'd think you've seen me enough around the forums to know that I'm mainly a PS guy. I'm not trying to downplay Sony's achievements, but let's be realistic. The PS3 was a colossal financial failure. The only reason Sony edged out the 360 was because they ate massive losses for several years.

hmmm. okay.  I don't know if you are ignoring it on purpose but there are people here saying 2020 is a good launch for the PS because PS4 is still selling well. Ignoring that MS can launch a new box in 2019. I am not arguing about the release date. I am arguing that MS can release it on 2019 and I showed some evidence that 3rd party devs are visiting MS and this late in this gen. It's very likely Capcom and Sega are visting not because of Xbone but rather the next box.  So one last time. It's not the release date is what I am arguing but the reason.

So again if MS decided to release the new box next year Sony will follow suit and it doesn't matter if PS4 is still selling well  or it doesn't matter if it's this year or the next or 2020 (which a lot of people here s hoping for) because IMO Sony will not allow MS to have a 1 year head start again.

MS could release a console tomorrow if we are only talking about "everything is possible", PS5 and Switch2 could also be released tomorrow. Most people think 2020 or 2021 as the plan for PS5 because that is what would be reasonable, 2019Q1 isn't. Because even if Xbox launch a console in 2019 sony making PS5 release on Q1 would be a very rush release and totally unecessary. They didn't let Xbox release schedule on X360 or X1 or X1X change their own release schedule, so why would they let X2 do it?

We are on a different market now. Time has changed. Xbox is a strong brand now. PS strongest competitor. 
We have the COD games now, Assassin's creed and Battlefield. Imagined the next box releasing with those 3. 
And your last bit imagined the new Xbox releasing with all those things you mentioned and with a headstart. Do you think MS will not be aggressive knowing that they don't have any competition? Maybe you are underestimating the marketing power of MS and do you think MS didn't learn it's lesson from Xbone? If Sony gave them that advantage then they are just giving the MS a free ride for the whole year with no competition and building it's fanbase. 

and Do you think the COD fanbase will switch to PS5 if it is release a year after? You are underestimating the effect of that game and the peer pressure from that fanbase. 
Do you think if PS5 launch MS will not use the Price drop strategy for it's xbox to steal thunder for PS5? 
IMO Sony will not give any sort of advantage to MS. They learn their lesson with the PS3 and to some extend PS4.