N64 was saved by Pokemon Stadium. The lack of a CD drive reduced costs greatly, I'd imagine.

As for Gamecube, I have no idea how did that turned a profit.

Even though the sells for the Gamecube were extremely poor none of them were sold at loss, every single unit they sold meant money for Nintendo's pocket

I remember reading about the GC being sold at launch for a small $20 loss or so, but I could be mistaken. Anyways Nintendo had at least a quarter in the red after the GC fell to $99 and they had the whole "who are you?" campaign.

Still it shows how the Gameboys were highly successful as far as profits are concerned, and ultimately represented the triumph of the PowerPC + ATI combo as a cheap but efficient hardware design.

GBA/GBA games/GCN games saved the GCN from putting Nintendo in the red. Maybe even the DS and DS games helped too cause the DS came out in 2004

Nintendo's endless profits shows why Sony will keep the vita and keep it at the 250$ price point.

very interesting, Nintendo's marketing and management must be pro

i hope this year is not the first red for Ninty, are there any chances to profit in 2012!? i mean 3DS is being sold at a gain now and is selling a lot

It's seling at a loss, I think

Either way, Nintendo was having a nice streak... if they don't freak out about having a loss for the first time they're good.

But the gamecube was a powerhouse over the ps2, for it to be sold at $199 at launch and $99 by 2003 and still be profitable on every unit,  that only bodes well for the prfoitablilty of the less able ps2 which launched at $299 and benefited from significantly larger scales of economy. I assume the DVD drive was initially fairly expensive but still...

I guess it must be down to Sony's marketing cost, and as people have been saying the profit gained from the GBA which had no competition.

Wow, this is surprising, Microsoft lost more in 06 and 07 than SONY did!

I would have to dig up the old GI but I believe its because even though the CPU/GPU in the Gamecube was modified, they weren't heavily modified and where basically off the shelf hardware from IBM and ATi. And Nintendo always has R&D costs if I remember correctly Atlantis went through several major revisions before it came out as the GBA.

It just that Nintendo doesn't let R&D costs spiral out of control probably because of the company's overall philosophy for its hardware trying to balance costs with power, something set by the last president of Nintendo. Sony seems content on getting the most powerful components in the machine without making the end product market-ably unfeasible. The Gamecube may of been more powerful but the PS2 was using newer technology at the time, DVD-drive, fully programmable EE units, etc and launching a  year earlier which also drives up comparible prices.