Console war exist only between gamers.

You consider add ons as console sales?

Tell that to MS and Sony.

Not bad for the 600$ launch price console

You forgot selling more software then 360 in 2009 (and probably 2010)

EDIT: Too harsh. I regret what I wrote prior, thus I removed it.

Criticisms like this should be reserved for the top dog (Nintendo) not the under dogs (Sony and Microsoft).

I don't think anyone is mad enough to call PS3 a huge success, other than the Sony PR dept, and that only because they have to. PS3 is a generation of 2 halves. I would argue 2nd half of the generation is a huge success. But first half was a big series of failures. End result Playstaion brand will come out of the generation with its reputation in tact, but with diminished consumer capital. Not to mention being financially in the red, but significantly less so than what it might have been. Slim @$299 saved its arse and it came at just the right time.

Agreed. The sick puppy had to be bled in order to save it, and external global economic forces almost killed it.

Yeah but now they are going for a reasonably good end - they won format war for HD movies, PS3 continues the growth in emerging markets for and sooner or later it will reach 100M plus sales levels (they still have $200 and $100 price points to saturate in next years).

So by the end of lifetime loses from initial phase should be minimazed.

I don't see how much the console lost as being being a factor of it's success in any way, seeing as the experience provided by the console has suffered at all becasue of it. If loses ever contribe to a lesser experience then it matters, however that isn't the case with the ps3 by a  mile, and it preformed badly compared to ps2 simply because it was expensive, if it launced at $300 (like the ps2 and ps1) and performed the way it did sales wise now that would be patheic.