Golden thread is golden.

The PS3 may be a good console, but financially it was a huge failure.

It's a fairly simple narrative. Failure is defined by expectations and goals. Clearly Sony's goal with the PS3 was to repeat the PS2, and therefore, yes, it is a failure, despite being a solid offering as far as consoles go historically (and others pointed out, compares very favorable to all its 3rd-place kin).

Likewise, PSP is a failure, because it is clear Sony's goal was to replicate the PS phenomenon in the handheld space, despite its status as the best non-Nintendo handheld on record.

The only not-generation-winning consoles that succeeded in what their companies set out to do were the Sega Master System, Neo Geo, and original Xbox.

I'm not an Sony fanboy, nor have I secretly switched my account with another member of the site, but I don't think the PS3 is a failure. It has not achieved the success that Sony wanted, but it hasn't been a commercial failure.

Anyone arguing that the PS3 is a failure would have to likewise argue that the original Xbox was a failure, but it wasn't. It wasn't as successful as Microsoft would have liked, but it was a step to the Xbox 360, which without the original Xbox Microsoft could not have had the Xbox 360 be the success that it has been this generation.

Having said that, no console can say it is the most successful console. Nintendo can say it sold the most, but it lost many third-party developers and gamer goodwill, that it'll be a tough road ahead for the WiiU. Microsoft has had huge success in the US and UK, but the rest of Europe and Japan it's having difficulty with. Not to mention, the first two years it struggled to identify and resolve the three red lights issue, and then repairing those impacted. The PS3 has been by far the worst financial disaster for Sony on the hardware level, but software wise it hasn't done bad. For a company that had market dominance, it isn't doing horribly bad in third-place.

I don't think there are any winners or losers this generation. I think the they all have had their triumphs and their failures.

I don't think he put much thought in his statement. He does have one point about the ps2 comparison however, Sony sold each ps3 at a lost knowing that. Shane Satterfeild is comparing an expensive product that is still selling, and in some regions outselling its competitor. Everything else he says is not creditable.

The Wii is a mixed success because of Nintendo's lack of follow-through, not because of the lack of third party support. The Xbox 360 is also only a mixed success because they became the real PS2-type successor when the PS2-paradigm became outdated.

In a way yes, it didn't really manage to be successful early on in the game, but a solid first party and price cut helped bring out of the total failure zone. Overall, I'd say it's a successful console, but you can't deny the ground Sony lost this gen has just been immense. MS and Nintendo seem to have capitalized on both a mainstream and niche audience in a way the PS3 has failed to do this gen.

Ah yes, because helping your company lose billions for  six years straight and dropping their value from 100bil to 17bil is a success if I ever saw one