Loss leaders are standard in retail and they pretty much work on the principle that all the money you lose on the product ia then recouped on the subsequent purchases made by those people in your store.

A few second hand game sales, new controllers or whatever else recoups the loss and ultimately makes more money then if you didn't bother to take the loss on the initial deal in the first place.

Nintendo never said that they sell the 3DS with loss and it is unbelieveable that they would do such thing.

It does seem strange that they would sell each unit at a loss, especially seen as though they (presumably) sold so so many of them. I suppose it is a good way to garner publicity for their store though.

Basically they lost money on the Wii, but probably made up for it in the Wii games they sold and peripherals, and probably other non-game relaed stuff. It's a good strategy to attract costumers

Basically i can say no more than the guys in front of me posted, whatever they lost, they made back plus some in other products.

This is the way it works.

Wal*Mart (Largest Corporation in the world) loosing money.... lol

When Wal*Mart sells an item, be sure to understand it's not losing money.

That $100.00 Wii got people in the door to buy more then just the Wii.

Just like Wal*Mart selling HDTV's cheaper then any other retail, because when they (the consumer) buy the TV, they see the money they saved and in turn, will use that money to spend on Cables, Blu-Ray Player, Movies, etc. Wal*Mart makes it's profits off accessories when it comes to electronics.

I remember when people thought they would lose money for selling DVD for only $5.00 lol, you can see how well that worked, I like many would go to walmart just to get a $5.00 DVD, then before I knew it I was walking out with shit I did not need, or it might have been cheaper someplace else, but I was already at the store and had the slightly more expensive item in my hand, so I just payed for it because I was saving money on the DVD.

It's all Corporate Marketing Science.

Wal*Mart did not lose a penny selling the Wii for $99.00

Oh really you mean like how N64 towards the end supposedly sold at a loss and GameCube at 99$ sold at a loss. No Nintendo would never sell struggling hardware at a loss.... Yes Nintendo has indicated multiple times that they are selling 3DS at a loss I don't have time to go through all the qoutes to show you. Also Microsoft and Sony have lost money on hardware on a regular basis their is no reason Nintendo wouldn't do like wise if they thought it would benefit them in the long run.

All the fans denying Nintendo is selling at a loss, seriously you need to better understand how Nintendo and the industry work!

Of course they did. That's how Black Friday early bird/door busters of any kind work.

Do you think they made money on those sub-$200 laptops in any store?

They sale those things to get people to hopefully choose their store to come in and buy all the other items they are selling for profit. Its called a loss leader and its a normal retail practice for decades.

They do that all throughout the year at major sales. They'll offer some limited quantity item, usually labelled with no rain checks, and simply sale it at a measurable loss while they try their hardest to upsell the customer to other items, accessories, etc.

And in return they got thousands of consumers who will have to buy games for those Wii consoles

Wal Mart has so much stupid money, you really think this would even hurt them? It brings 10x more people in for the deals than actually obtain the Wii. None of whom want to go home empty handed.