In my opinion, this is the best post on this thread.

The problem of PS3 is not only the price. Is the Price + Similar X360 graphics.

If sony scrapped blu-ray and installed a 8800GTX, for the same price I think that PS3 would be way more successfull.

I hope that in PS4 they have external GPU options for the console.

Obviously, must be why the original Xbox decimated the PS2 in the US and UK.....

People buy the console that offers them what they want, for whatever reason a lot of people in the UK and US didn't see what they wanted in the PS3 and for me it was a combination of value for money (early on), lack of any killer title pre Uncharted (MGS4 was a good game but not a long term system seller), less social online experience.  I think those three items contributed to a very large number of peoples buying decisions and it was only in 2009 the PS3 truly started competing on those fronts. 

The system was simply over-powered for this generation.

The PSX and PS2 were both weaker systems, and affordable compared to the competition. The games on PSX were also half the price of N64 games - and in many cases higher quality titles that would go on to reach classic status - also PSX had 500 games on it while the N64 was having trouble pushing 25-30 after over a year and a half on the market.

Sony also promoted the wrong sort of games. Microsoft and Nintendo did a lot better promoting games people were interested in.

The obvious answer as has been stated already is the price. The secondary answer as has also been stated is the actual games and their differences on each console(multi platform titles). Seeing as how there is very little difference to the look and gameplay of the titles regardless of which system, why would the average consumer bother paying more? Sure, the "gamers" care, but the bigger buying public(that's the other 90%+) could give a crap, and want what's the trend(wii when it launched through 2010). Now it's still price and trend(hands free controllers).

That would have been the case had they not hampered the extra power with some architecture design mistakes and a poor SDK to get the most out of it.  It wasn't really too overpowered though as neither the PS3 or 360 managed to hit 1080p rendering for many games this gen and have at times dropped sub 720p and sub the ideal 60FPS.  I cant wait for next gen, 720p 60FPS 3D and 1080p 60FPS native 2D will soon be here!

Yeah I agree. Blu Ray is great and all its just I think it may be arrived a gen too early.

Its not like DVD held the Xbox back. Its 2011/12 and GOTY still ships on one DVD.

Also I have just one Blu Ray film. I also have the DVD and I cannot tell the difference after upscaling other than the DVD is a lot quicker to start playing the main feature and about a third cheaper.

The C3LL was massively overblown. Its just not that great after all. At least not that great for games devs anyway.

It was painful to watch Developers move to the easier to program for 360, but SONY only had itself to blame.

If the PS3 failed it was firmly down to SONY and HUBRIS.

I would also say a real dearth of good games for the first 18 months hurt the brand, but thats a prob every gen.

Nonetheless 4 years for a substandard GT iteration is not acceptable.

Still the PS3 may well be the bloody nose that SONY richly deserved but can use to shake them out of their slumber.

Cmon SONY get the PS4 right.

Not telling their audience to go out and get second jobs to be able to afford their system would have been a nice start.

Poor marketing and including the expensive Blu-Ray pretty much killed the PS3. going this route they would have had to release the PS3 at $400 for it to sell a large amount right off the bat. If they had done that, they would have losts even more billions, but they would be well ahead of the XBox 360 right now. If they had removed the Blu-Ray and used just a DVD, they would be ahead of the XBox 360 now. The Cell was expensive too, but taking out the Blu-Ray would have definitely drop the cost. Including both the CELL and Blu-Ray made the system to expensive. Sony also have very poor launch titles. Not a "AAA" anywhere in site. Then there were developers who complained about how hard it was to program for the PS3. Japanese developers actually flocked to the XBox 360 and Wii, because the PS3 was so tough to get into. Sony should be able to learn from their mistakes for the PS4.

I think the biggest thing Sony could have done was lower the initial price. They dreamed big with PS2 compatibility and they built the thing with tons of unnecessary metal and other things. If the first PS3 had been a Slim (I know the ps3 has smaller die size on there chips now) costing $300 they would have crushed Microsoft. Secondly I would have timed it better, if they had been ready before/closer to Microsoft and some how had a decent lineup of games it would have helped a lot. But we all know the PS3 was rushed and many versions of it were scrapped before the first PS3 even hit the streets and there wasn't time for devs to get more games then they did on the new hardware. That's my opinion.