it *is* a success, of course. selling a lot of hardware and software one would be crazy to not call it a success. problem for sony is: the competition is much harder. MS taking a lot of market-share with its second gen console and the wii came out of nothing, stealing market share from a side sony couldn't expect.
for gamers, this is just perfect - we get more varieties of games, more possibilities in gaming (move, kinect) and also we pay less :)

We, as consumers, don't care of the "financially speaking" success of the PS3.

From a gamer perspective, hell yeah it's a success. Best console of this generation IMO.

That depends entirely on the criteria being used to determine the console's success. Comparing the PS3 to its predecessors would lead one to say it's definitely failed to live up to expectations, but looking at the PS3 in a vacuum could lead one to say it's been fairly successful.

In the end it's making money and providing me with fun games to play over five years after launch, and that's pretty good when compared to many consoles of the past. So for me, yeah, it's a success. But that's only based on my own personal barometer.

Though there's no doubt that Sony (and everyone else prior to E306) were expecting it to be far more successful.

Edit:

Really, labeling it a success or failure seems kinda trivial.

We know the marketshare the PS1, PS2, and PS3 held during their respective generations.  We know the rough profit and loss for SCE for each year since '95 or so.  We know how long the PS1/PS2 were able to sell on the market, their peak years of sales, and so on and so forth.  We know that the PS3 is financially viable and has enough demand to continue selling at this time.  We can analyze publisher support for the PS3 compared to other consoles, and we can do the same with actual software sales.  And we can use all of this information when gaging what actions SCE may take in the future. 

Applying a subjective term like "success" or "failure" to the totality of this information doesn't change any of it, nor does it add to or subtract from the usefulness of such information.  Thus, we're all labeling the same exact information in different ways.

Though I suppose it's about the same as saying "I like band X".  Music doesn't change depending on the listener, and subjectivity exists for a reason.

...I need to stop letting my mind wander like this.

I'm gonna use the Dreamcast just to play devil's advocate.

It had a ton of great games at the time. Maybe 90% of their best games were exclusive. I covered alll genres. It introduced me to online gaming, voice control, analog triggers, the VMU, open world games, etc. From a gamer's standpoint, I was in heaven.....but it killed Sega.

I didn't care about Sega's sales or profit margin at the time. I just cared about having fun. Now, I know Sony isn't sega and the PS3 isn't the Dreamcast (initially, another console was compared to the Dreamcast....) but you may see some similarities. Would you call the Dreamcast a success? It's a rhetorical question.

You can't be more wrong with this asumption. A wealthy company means less money has to go to pay debt+interests, so more R+D budget, better first party games and they can sell cheaper consoles in the long run.

That is what they said in 2007....  Nintendo making ton of money and sony losing money will mean we see many great Wii exclusives and Sony in the end almost nothing...

Or even better check MS.  How more profit they make how less exclusives they have.  

saleswise it is a success in my opinion financial it isn't. i don't know but i don't believe sony will be ever in the blacks with the ps3...i mean yes they are maybe in the black atm but they won't get all losses of the first years back.

but to be honest it's all not easy to say. for example i believe ps3 helped to push the blu-ray format and this would mean sony movie sales did better because of the ps3 which noone is including in the numbers. i have few sony movies here just because i own a ps3 which means sony got money from me for movies because of the ps3

if it wasn't a success it would have ended like the dreamcast. it would have lose all support, and stop selling. that didn't happen. it have a strong fanbase to start, and therefore it kept growing. (IMO)

Yes and no. It has sold a good amount of hardware and has a very good attach rate and software sales but it has also been an overall expense for Sony in the long haul.
The x-box brand has grown significantly this gen and Nintendo had a huge comeback while Sony managed to lose massive ground on the market and, subsequently, power and influence in the industry.
Then again; Microsoft had the RROD scandal, harddrive troubles, disc scratch etc and gained infamy for poor hardware and the Wii managed to sell zounds without so much as a second glance from third parties, doing in essence nothing about the age old 3rd party problem on their home consoles in addition to setting records for the quickest fading sales in home console history.

I guess, in the end, all three have had their ups and downs and in the big picture the PS3 hasn't fared worse than the two others (with the above mentioned problems, among others) but compared to the previous two generations, which where wholly profitable and saw them stacked neatly on top of the crowd and made them a global superpower in gaming, this gen has been a small disaster.

Is it a success? All things considered and given the circumstances set both by Sony themselves (ludicrous launch price, loss of massive exclusives etc) and others; yes, like the other two.

Depends on what Sony wanted it to do.

Dominate the market? Not a sucess.
Make money? Nope.
Retain the PS2 momentum? No.

Keep the fans happy? Yes.