Wii U Apparently Still Being Sold At A Loss

[Soundwave]

Train wreck said:
Sony and Microsoft's decision to go with off the shelf parts looks like it was the smart move for both them and consumers. Whatever cost savings they incur they can pass to the consumer in terms of lower prices. In another instance of Nintendo wanting to be different, it seems to have backfired...again.

Yeah I'm thinking this is one of the cold, hard lessons Nintendo learned the hard way this gen. They probably will switch over to ARM CPUs across the board next time around (ditching IBM's dated CPU) for one. 

But Sony and MS are also selling at a much higher volume which likely gives them far flexibility in negotiating component prices or getting a break here and there. If they're making their suppliers a decent amount of cash, the supplier likely doesn't want to lose their business and will budge on certain things if asked. Nintendo unfortunately isn't in that position and some of their components probably can only be made be a very small number of vendors.