FORTUNE: The game isn't over yet for Nintendo's Wii U

[archbrix]

Yakuzaice said:

archbrix said:

The quarter is from April-June.  All the report says is that the change happened after the quarterly financial briefing, so we know it was after the fiscal year (end of March).  The announcement was made in May; do you have a source that states that WiiU was loss-free during the whole quarter?

Well it wasn't really an announcement made in May, it was an answer to a question asked in May.  Two different connotations there.  Iwata's answer also doesn't really suggest anything changed beyond it being a different fiscal year.  A significant portion of the 3.6m they intend to sell were produced last fiscal year where the losses were booked.  That's why he said "almost no loss" this fiscal year, if they were profitable it doesn't really make sense that they would be generating any loss.

Yeah, I guess the "announcement" was technically based on the analyst's tweet.  So, is Iwata saying that once they start manufacturing more WiiU's (after their current stock is gone), those new consoles won't incur losses anymore?

EDIT:  The thing is, Gibson (the analyst) specifically says "Nintendo will not be taking a loss on inventory sitting in warehouses waiting to be on retail shelves."