>>106343993 (OP)
It had too many problems.
1. too expensive, $600 is still a big ask now. Back in 06, that was close to $1000 in today's eaglebux
2.it was not yet clear that blu-ray would be a new standard. There was a battle between it an HD-DVD that wouldn't be resolved until mid-gen, so it wasn't nearly as strong of a selling point as DVD playback was for the PS2
3. First generation to run into the problem of "people REALLY loved the last generation which has all these amazing games they still haven't played". When this launched at $600, PS2 was $130 with a shitload of amazing $20 games. Nintendo felt it with the WiiU a generation later, which is probably why they never dropped price on the Switch1.
4. Not everyone had HDTVs this early, so the main selling point was moot.
5. It got blindsided by the Wii, which stole ALL of the casual momentum Playstation had going with Guitar Hero-type party games. 360 did a number on it with Xbox Live, which required an immediate answer that never came. Ultimately Sony eschewed both the casual and hardcore online gamer markets to focus on moviegames, which is the niche they struggle to sustain themselves on to this day.
Wonderful hardware, but like their handhelds it didn't seem that they had any sort of actual plan. They expected that customers would just show up on their own if they made premium entertainment devices. They needed to be a little smarter and leverage their other entertainment and hardware divisions. The fact that they made only one Xperia Play phone before giving up was peak insanity. They had movie/tv + music + console + pc + phone markets, and they let every single one of them die in isolation instead of creating an ecosystem.
