PS3 was not a commercial failure.
Also not a failure with the heavy hitting 1st and 3rd party titles.
Not a failure as the best, cheapest, and most versatile blu ray player for about a decade.
Seriously. It supported more of the blu ray spec than any other player on the market. They even added 3D blu ray support later.
So no. Not a failure.
That said. Not perfect either.
Tho I still have mine and a healthy library, here’s how it failed me.
Lost my credit card info in one of the largest data breaches in corporate history. Gave me a copy of Little Big Planet in return.
Pulled Linux support at the drop of a hat. Lost my data and my chance to learn cell processing and land a high performance computing job. (Not kidding).
Abandoned backwards compatibility after overly expensive hardware attempts and half assed software attempts.
Superhuman effort required to keep the console alive. Your PS3 will not last as long as your NES, SNES, N64 did. Yes, my launch model phat still works. But check these very forums. Every 3 years I take the whole thing apart. Re thermal paste the cpu and gpu and reassemble.
The longevity insult is made worse by the complete lack of PS3 compatibility in the PS4.
SONY did NOTHING to add/maintain the value of PS Plus when they stopped including free PS3 and Vita titles each month.
All the above for me led to an erosion of my confidence and loyalty to the brand over time.
Yeah, I have a PS4 Pro. Yes, I am getting a PS5.
But I also have an Xbox One X and plan on getting a Series X.
I’ve even repurchased much of my PS3 library on 360 because most of them work on XB1 and will also work on Series X.
PS3 was NOT a failure. But SONY sure as hell let me down time after time with it. There was a good 5-6 year run where it felt like they resented me being their customer along with their “obligation” to provide me with their goods and services.
