The sad truth is that making Blu-rays mainstream did more for this gen than anything else the 3 consoles attempted to introduce. I bought into 3D gaming like a sucker. Still, my LG tv is pretty awesome regardless.

Also to answer the main question. Definitely. It's far from over yet, i'm hoping to see about 80-100million units sold by the end of its 10 year life cycle. It was a financial sink but it was worth it in the end for it forced Sony to differentiate itself from the competition with a slew of great exclusives, both first and third party, old and new IPs. Also from graphs i've seen, I recall the PS1 and PS2 didn't make Sony much in terms of revenue despite them selling over 100million units each.

Surely not just that. Being an important member of the winning format means not just money, but power. Being an important and big member of the losing format would have meant having to sell the losing format units produced at a loss. Sony doesn't sell just PS3 using BD, it sells standalone BD players and recorders, external and internal BD readers and writers for PCs, it sacrificed PS3 profits to help other products to take off. Most probably it overestimated the benefits on Home Audio and Video Product Category, as Games is currently twice as big, but with hindsight... And HA & V and optical drives for PC would have surely suffered if they were in the losing format. Finally, now that PlayStation isn't anymore the threat against Windows business MS feared, MS competition with Sony isn't so harsh and aggressive anymore, but back then MS support for the competing format was clearly meant as a direct attack also against Sony, not just against Java. BTW the format war raging at PS3 launch caused blue lasers shortages and their price skyrocketing so that Sony suffered a double damage, not having enough units for a simultaneous WW launch, what's worse missing a Xmas launch in Europe, and increased production costs.

ok you got a point there. Then I have to say: saleswise, it eventually will be (although not matching PS2´s sales), financially, ah, well, not. By the way, are they still losing money on every sold PS3?

NO.

They have not made money from the PS3 and they have lost many 3rd party exclusives and market share to M$.

The only good thing the PS3 has done for Sony is to establish better 1st party studios which will benefit the next consoles and handheld's yet to come. '
Had the PS3 made money or broke even than i would call it a success. Though i do expect it to be profitable for many years to come. I doubt it will make all the money back.


The PS3 has done good in laying the ground work for the next console

anyway: number 1 selling console of the year, currently has the best software support of the 3, no longer selling console for a loss, succeeding in laying the ground work for next gen console better than it's competitors, sounds like a success to me

No its not a success, its not even sold half of the hardware or software that the PS2 has while Xbox 360 has more than doubled the original Xbox in hardware and who knows how much more going by software.

They've gone from first place to last. Utterly stomped in USA and UK the two biggest markets and even in Japan the console has sold about a third what the other two consoles did.

It sells well and all but overall it wasn't successful.

Wait, WHAT? Is that you, Superman?

About time you got your own phone instead of using phone booths!

I wonder what people would rate Sony's "success" at on a scale of 1-10. I suspect some ppeople would rate it a resounding 10/10!!

Love is blind! :D

Thanks for the reply Kow, I probably wouldn't have bothered given the laughable response. I'm still trying to figure out how they laid the best groundwork for the next gen by throwing away huge marketshare in the US and UK. Crazy guy.