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darkknightkryta on 14 July 2012
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JEMC said:

Now I have to disagree with you again.

darkknightkryta said:

This is actually what I was thinking about with the Gamecube, I don't think 30 million is enough for Nintendo to be profitable,  even if the Gamecube broke even for Nintendo, the Gameboy and the DS is what made Nintendo profitable.

As I said, given that we don't know how much does it actually cost to make, the price that it will have, the number of units that it will sell and the target goal of Nintendo (something that allows them to add that extra bit of cost to every unit to recover the R&D costs), it's impossible to know if they WiiU will be profitable or not.

darkknightkryta said:

Nintendo's situation is one where the 3DS's loses can't be absorbed.  The Wii and DS haven't been able to make Nintendo break even and a new console is going to bring them even more losses (That loss being the nature of releasing new hardware, even Sony lost money on the PS2's first year).

???

Of course they can absorb the losses from the 3DS. It only has 1 year, and Nintendo has said that they will no longer sell it at a loss in August. They will have 5 more years or so to make their money back.

Wii and DS not being profitable? Are you crazy? They have made loads of money, both with hardware and software (yes, even Wii has sold enough software to be very profitable).

Sony has sold all their consoles at a loss at launch. Same with Microsoft. It's the way they aproach this business and it's one of the reasons PS3 has hurt them so much financially. They make money back with software and accessories.

darkknightkryta said:

I personally don't think there's much of a market for dedicated gaming devices anymore, which is why I think Sony bought Gaikai, and why Microsoft is delaying their next sucessor.  They both know the dedicated game market is a failing market so they're quietly making their exits and evolving their brands into something else to compete with Apple and Google.  And in Sony's case, joining Google.

Yes, you may be right. And you may be wrong. We'll see in 5 years or more.

I was refering to the Gamecube which apparently sold at a 10 dollar loss, or something small at launch, are you talking about the Wii-U when refering to production cost?  And how are the Wii and DS absorbing the 3DS' losses when Nintendo is posting losses?  They wouldn't be losing money if the Wii and DS are currently generating enough money.  They were very profitable before, they're not now.  Though even selling at a profit will the 3DS have the software sales to cover the costs of running Nintendo?  And should the Wii-U fail to break even for the first few years will the 3DS make enough money for Nintendo to stay profitable?  I don't believe it will, the 3DS isn't exactly a software monster, and Nintendo has already released sequels to the games that made the DS sell 400k weekly for years.  Again, my belief is that the current 3DS and VIta sales are due to the current tablet/smartphone market, and the console market will likely shrink for the same reasons.