Vita hardware has never been sold at a loss to my knowledge. Sony were very stubborn in maintaining the launch price of the system through the early years prioritising incurring losses as opposed to grabbing extra sales. Even if the hardware itself launched being sold at a loss, the Memory cards will have helped eat that up.
Vita software has a very high attach rate per system and Sony haven't really invested too much in the software for the system, particularly after 2013, so it has sold more software and Sony haven't had to foot the development of much of that software. They are just taking their cut from all the third party software releasing on the system.
I suspect Sony have done far better out of the Vita than many will think. And if they can now keep it simmering on third party releases as it currently is, with no need to launch a successor, by the time the last software has been released for the console, I suspect it'll have been a slow burner, but certainly not been a huge financial black hole in Sony's figures.
Sony have also had a very low key marketing strategy with Vita. I'd be surprised if the entire marketing spend for the system and software came to much more than individual marketing campaigns Nintendo has been doing for it's big titles like Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon.
RIP Dad 25/11/51 - 13/12/13. You will be missed but never forgotten.
