Sony's decision to slap a Blu-ray player into its Playstation 3 console helped seal HD-DVD's fate as the modern day Betamax, but the costly hardware also helped contribute to a whopping $3 billion loss in hardware sales, according to a Kotaku report. Sony's fiscal 2008 annual report also pinpointed "the large-scale investment required during the development and introductory period" as a contributing factor. Throwing salt into the financial wound, the now ancient PS2 sold more hardware than the PS3 in fiscal 2008, and nearly three times as much software. Ouch.

Image Credit: Sony