MS's devices division (includes the highly unprofitable surface tablets) was announcing profits of $1bn towards the end the end of the 360's life. For that reason, I think the 360 become profitable, however, for MS's standards, the money the 360 made is tiny. 

4 billion is nothing, the playstation devision makes more than that every year and that was even before the ps4 came. Many of these costs went also to online infastructure or PSnow. I think the ps3 will hold longer than people think.

$4bn is a huge amount. 

I think you're mixing up profits and revenue. The PS division might make that much in revenue, but the games division hasn't ever made that much in profit even during the PS2's peak. 

yeah and they're fairly close to selling the most sofware of the 7th gen according to this site (amazingly big leap there I know)

I thought I read that PS3 finally turned a profit in 2012?

I would think that but it seems the hardware just isn't coming down in price.  I mean it should be at most $200 for the 250gb now but the only one that is $200 is the 12gb version nobody wants.

From 2013

According to the report, Sony lost more than $3.5 billion in 2007 and 2008 after the PS3 launched for $600 in 2006. CEO Kazuo Hirai has said the system did not become profitable until late 2011.

Sony aims to avoid PS3-like losses for the PS4 in part due to a smaller investment in the PS4 relative to the PS3, CFO Masaru Kato said on a recent earnings call.

Kato said Sony spent "hundreds of millions" in designing the PS3's chip set and "billions" on semiconductor fabrication because these technologies were not readily available.

"There were no manufacturing capacity or technology to manufacture these chipsets. So the amount of investment that went into PS3 was quite big," Kato said.

http://kotaku.com/5575994/after-nearly-four-years-the-ps3-finally-turns-a-profit

I guess this was referring to each individual machine, not as a whole.

Where do you get this kind of information? Sony said almost 5 years ago that they are making money with PS3. So you think that they have not earned that money back what they first loss? I think they have made that money back multiple times. That's why Sony's stock is over 2 times bigger now what it was example in the year 2014 and 4 times bigger than year before that.

http://www.slashgear.com/sony-finally-making-money-on-ps3-hardware-no-price-cut-in-foreseeable-future-3092255/

Well it will make sony profits. And the ps3 has still so many exclusive games that people would still pay that right now or subscribe to PSnow or buy some HD collection on ps4.