As a console? Yes cuz high price + uncomfortable controller + shitty network.
As a BR player? Nope.

Yes, it can be very hard to call! But that's what makes this an interesting topic to discuss :D I'm actually pretty stunned of how many have voted "No" in the poll, I thought far more people would see it as a failure...

I think that the total numbers are what won't make people call it a failure. It's a similar blurry situation with 3DS and X1. High sales numbers, but both, like PS3, failed in reaching some expectations or lost some important market.

It's a good discussion that should have a dedicated thread, like "What makes a console a success or failure?".

Did it fail commercially? No
Did it fail financially? Yes (lifetime)
Did it fail its brand history? Yes

Pretty simple really.

4th best selling home console of all time it nothing mind blowing? Sure, if you compare it to PS2, it's not "mind blowing", but the PS2 was a breakout success, the de facto console of the 6th gen (24M and 21M from XB and GC? Come on, now) and was on the market for 12 years. If we were to chart console sales, PS2 wouldn't be a part of the trend. It'd be the outlier that was discredited. That's not a precedent that should be set for gauging how "successful" a console is.

When you consider that, disbarring the PS2, only the Wii and PS1 are above it, at ~100M and the closest thing to it, other than the 360 with basically identical sales, is the NES, with 20M+ less units sold, I think that says something.

@sales2099

I dunno how you can say it failed its "brand history". Like I said, PS2 was an outlier. PS2 was pretty much a default choice, because GCN and XB didn't offer anything. PS2 was on the market for 12 years. You can't judge the PS brand off an anomaly. 360 offered much more than XB, and as a result, was a more attractive option and as a result, got more sales than its predecessor. Meaning PS3 wasn't an automatic choice like PS2 was. Sony can't control what Xbox does, so can't tarnish the PS name just because Xbox got better. If a new phone series came out with a uniform/standardized OS across its models came out, and iPhone sales subsequently fell, you can't say iPhone messed up its brand just because the competition was more....competitive.

Financally- yes , Sony probably lost money on the PS3
Brand wise- no, Sony still maintained their brand name with the PS3, giving awesome games, and making it a multimedia home entertainment system with its blue ray player

Would disagree with failing brand history.

Many iconic PS franchises succeeded on PS3 and it also came up with tons of new GOTY winning AAA IP's, while maintaining a balance of 1st and 3rd party content. Its what PS does best and it proved it.

The only limiting factor was the price of the console.

I use the word limiting and not failure because at the end of the day, its still the 4th highest selling home console and theres only 1 non sony console that has beaten it.

If thats considered a failure, good luck to every other console in history (and the majority of consoles yet to be released)

I'd say yes and no. They lost so much money initially with the fat PS3, and had to do a complete redesign and price drop extremely quickly to sell consoles. But sales did get better.

Yes, it's a very blurry (and hence an interesting topic) situation; it lost market shares, it sold less than its (extraordinary) predecessor, it cost Sony a lot of money, BUT it sold over 80m units and managed to claw itself to second place.

Not at all!
PS2 was the failure.
As in, ps2 hardware failed so much that people had to buy multiple consoles, which explains the incredibly high sales.