Well, that might be (altough that does lead me to more questions, for one: how do you handle storage costs and other financial aspects of stock you own but do not sell if the net profit in case of a sale is zero even when you sell it immediatly?*), but that still doesn't add in warehouse and distribution costs which cost someone money. Or is Sony taking that loss as well and are the PS3 losses higher than iSupply thinks?
*) Or perhaps better said: keeping stock costs money, so a retailer buying something at $600 and selling it at $600 as well is actually losing money on the sale, with more money being lost if the product doesn't sell well. In that light, having a stock of PS3's is more of a liability at this point (they don't sell well) than an asset.
And even more confusing to me in the zero-margin model would be bundle sales (by the manufacturer naturally, not by the retailer) where they bundle all you need to play (including game, leads and controllers) and quite happilly sell those. Surely those bundles would be 'the enemy' of retailers around the globe since they are a) all you immediately need and b) give zero profit (remember, if I buy a console at your shop there is no guarantee whatsoever I'm going to buy the rest I need for the device at your place as well!).
Likewise, I've bought a few consoles (replacements etc) without any extra's from retailer and they where all to happy to sell it to me like that and didn't push for me buying extra's.
Note, this is not meant to say I don't believe your post about retailers having zero profit (on consoles), but rather that I don't fully understand how this can work on the long term. To me it seems like a liability to sell at-manufacturer-price even if you think you can make up on it later on.
