Just to clarify because some people still don't get it. Iwata said back last year that the 3DS will be sold below cost (not sold at a loss, that's different). Yesterday he mentioned that the 3DS and XL will not be sold below manufacturing cost anymore, but that does not mean itll be profitable, since the cost to bring a good to market includes more than just manufacturing.

Also Nintendo was able to improve over last years loss because sales to both North America and Europe collapsed. NA represented 30% of sales, Europe a little more that 25% and Japan account for nearly 40% of their revenue, during a typical quarter both Europe and NA account for 75% and Japan would account for about 20%.

Nintendo also had lower GSA expenses and also had fewer items in inventory which helped in the numbers. The only thing is their cost of goods number is going to go up because they have to produce two new items in the 3DS XL and the Wii U, GSA most likely is going to rise since they have to have a bigger advertising budget, Their y/y forex loss tripled, which i don't see improving.

Losses don't simply come from manufacturing the product. A lot is going to go into the WiiU that aren't just simple manufacturing costs. Think of what Nintendo will shell out in marketing during the holidays.

Im starting to wonder if Nintendo struggling in the West right now isn't actually a good thing, given the exchange rate issue.

I know, crazy theory, but they've also been accused of doing other crazy things before too (Wii Stock Shortages).

If you look at their report, it becomes much more obvious.

Their operating loss, which is net sales minus cost of sales and general expenses (actually, that's operating income, but they had a loss), was 10.33 billion yen. Their losses due to the foreign exchange rate was 21.1 billion yen.

To put those numbers into perspective, 10.33 billion yen is US$132 million and 21.1 billion yen is US$270 million. The total loss works out to $220 million because apparently, Japan's income taxes also work in reverse, or something, because they had negative income tax that reduced their loss. I'm not going to pretend to understand it.

But just to use the relative numbers, a little over two thirds of their pre-tax loss was due to exchange rates. Translating that to the net loss, and one would estimate somewhere around $30 lost per 3DS. And that sounds rather reasonable, to me. The 3DS in America costs $170, so the break-even price would be $200, by this approximation.

Of course, it's not factoring in things like Wii U development and manufacturing costs, lack of new games released (meaning, most of their games from the last year are still in development), or any extra expenses in terms of getting third parties on board for the Wii U (dev kit costs, support, etc).

Update: Due to a misinterpretation, the original version of this story erroneously reported that Nintendo is no longer selling the 3DS at a loss versus its manufacturing cost. The story has been updated to fix this error.

It now says:
"It also noted that, while it is still selling the 3DS at a loss, that margin is improving."

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174700/Nintendos_losses_narrow_as_3DS_margins_improve.php

Nintendo is losing money....

because to make Smash Bros on the Wii U and 3DS is costing a megafortune. They have to pay a lot of licensing and royalty fees to make sure Goku and Rick Ross are in the game as characters.

We interrupt your regular doom and gloom to bring you this bit of schadenfreude:

http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2012/07/25/zynga-posts-surprise-loss-shares-down-more-than-30/?mod=yahoo_hs

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=t&s=ZNGA

"Zynga earnings just hit the Tape, they were bad, the outlook was worse, and the stock’s getting clobbered.

Shares were down 8% in late trading before the report even hit the Tape; they’re now down 41% at $2.99.

Facebook shares are down 6.6% as well, as investors worry about the read-through (company reports earnings tomorrow).

Zynga slashed its 2012 outlook. The company now projects adjusted EPS for the year of 4 cents to 9 cents, which is well, well below current Street consensus of 26 cents, according to FactSet.

The earnings were a salve by comparison. For the second-quarter, the company reported a loss of 3 cents a share, or a profit of 1 cents a share on an “adjusted” basis, on revenue of $332.5 million.

That’s off Street consensus, which was for earnings of 5 cents a share on revenue of $344 million."

We now return you to your scheduled programming.

When will Nintendo release Hardware and Software charts?

What charts do you mean?

Nintendo has already released Hardware and Software sales numbers by region, and they only separately list million-sellers for the quarter or for the year (when it's the full year) - of which, only Pokemon Black2/White2 made it for Q1 2013, at 2.45 million (almost entirely in Japan... not sure where the extra 30,000 were sold, though).

DS sold 10,000 in Japan, 400,000 in America, and 130,000 elsewhere. 3DS sold 920,000 in Japan, 420,000 in America, and 530,000 elsewhere. Wii sold 60,000 in Japan, 210,000 in America, and 440,000 elsewhere.

Nintendo release GFK charts every quarter which shows how much consoles actually sold and also software charts instead of just shipping figures.