Reggie was misquoted when he said Wii U profitable after one game

[Mr Khan]

My understanding was that the retailers paid for the games first anyway, which is why i never quite understood why publishers cared about sold vs shipped from a short-term financial standpoint. Longterm, i know it's important, as more sold means the retailers will buy more present and future games for their stock, but short-term per-unit Wii U profitability should depend on what retailers have bought, no?

My thoughts are that they're probably making a tiny per-unit profit if we factor software sales in.