Kotaku states the obvious. Nintendo isn't losing money with their console.

[Kenny]

More than anything else, I think this points out that Nintendo's strategy is the only one out of the big three which is truly sustainable. Hell, sticking to profiting off hardware got them through the GameCube pretty well, even if their brand name had almost declined into irrelevance at that point. Granted, Microsoft and Sony have much deeper pockets to dig into, but they have their shareholders to answer to as well, and it's never easy explaining to them how a few billion dollars went down the drain.