There's an interesting article about the reason why the PS3 is not yet "fully cracked". It is quite big so I will not quote it but you can read it here :

http://www.rssdrop.com/console-news/why-the-ps3-still-isnt-hacked/

I thought some of the reasons it is hard to program for might be some of the same reasons it is hard to hack.

Here's the thing. No console can just be "cracked". Diffeent people do different things with these console to get things moving. Here's what's been accomplished for PS3 thus far from the modding community:

-They're beginning to get PSN games from the PC over to the PS3, meaning they're opening up piracy for downloadable games. So far they've only gotten Gripshift and Go Sudoku to work.

-They've managed to bypass the firmware check from Sony to continue to go online and access the store without updating the firmware. 

-They've gotten about every incarnation of Linux up and running on PS3

-They've managed to figure out how to downgrade 1.60 firmware to 1.50

-The Swiss Army Knife v 1.00 contains everything needed to dump Blue Ray disc images onto your HDD without using Linux. From what I understand, they're now working on getting the games to play from the HDD but have not had success yet.

-There's a swap mod for playing import PS2 games and PS2 backups on your PS3

That's about it for now. The Linux allows you to run homebrew off of it, but that's no different than running it off a PC really. Pirated games are inevitable. They've managed to get a pirated blue ray game to boot up but not play yet. The PS3's security is very well done, but with all of the loopholes around the online firmware checks, once the crack is made to play pirated games, there won't really be a way to stop them like Microsoft has done with the online check, which I assume none have gotten past yet. I'm not a part of the modding scene with 360 so I really don't know how far along they are with it. I was with the Wii's scene for a while and it's a cakewalk.

Say what!?  Every Sony console was launched at a losing price.  Atari threatened to sue Sony if they launched the PS for less than $500 and many media outlets claimed Sony was off their rocker for launching the PS2 at such a huge loss.  Sony has never launched one of its PS brand systems at a profit or even break-even points.

Yeah, i'd agree.  In the case of the PS1, PS2 and even PSP it's likely that piracy actually made them more money then it cost.

When you get to poorer countries which systems are going to be the most popular?  The ones you can pirate because then people can get games rather then wait a few months to save up enough money to actually pay more for a game then people do in a country like the US. 

 At first.  However it started making profit over time, by the time it was hitting the non "main markets" where piracy is pretty rampant it was likely already making a profit.

You mean, sorta like the PS3 is doing? Reports already indicate that Sony has halved the cost of the machine since its launch and they haven't come close to finishing the cost cutting process. They are still using 65nm cells and 90nm RSXs, but intend to drop those to 45nm and 65nm in the near enough future. By sometime next year at the latest, every PS3 will be sold at a profit.

So, again, how is the PS3 any different from any of Sony's other systems?

It's not that surprising to me. The Gamecube actually took quite a long time to be fully cracked as well, but it eventually happened. BR and demand for cracks/mod-chips are the biggest barriers right now(the system with the highest demand logically has the most people trying to crack it). It'll happen though, and then the firmware war will begin. BR winning the format war should expedite the process a bit since burners will become more common/cheaper.

I predict it will be cracked by the end of '08.

I don't think that the PS3 is especially hard to crack. There's another thing: you can run Linux. Often pirates aren't the ones that crack consoles. They often lack technical knowledge. Mostly are the crackers the guys, who try to run Linux on every piece of silicium in the world. They have technical knowledge and an interest to find a hole to install Linux. For the PS3 no hole is needed. Linux is already on PS3, mission accomplished. So the community that tries to hack the PS3 is decreased by a big amount. And that's why it needs longer than normally to crack the thing.