Oh, you're completely right, the dates on the stuff I was linking was way off.

What I should have linked (now I've found it) in my original post was this:

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

The update section at the bottom:

"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."

Thats what I was having trouble with.  Every other outlet seems to report it's now being sold at a profit.  I'd still like to know whether there was a mis-translation or not, but it seems not given I can't find much more about it.

edit: And see my post below too! :P

Found a more up-to-date version of what I was looking for.  Disregard that post you quoted, was out-of-date and a bit rubbish!

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2012/120725e.pdf

There's still no mention of it being profitable, but to be honest I could be missing something completely as I am kinda tired.  The best I could find was:

"The profitability of the "Nintendo 3DS" hardware is improving, but the hardware has been in the negative margin".

I'm not really sure what that means.  But I presume this is the PDF all the news articles are linking to on July 25th, since it's the same date.  Perhaps there is something else in there, or that sentence means that they are profitable or something.

Now I remember why I like Sony.

Their PR people have the art of satire locked down.

If its acceptable then Sony just lowered the bar.

on the upside the Psvita has now outsold the GBAmicro! so I guess we can be happy to have beaten one of nintendos handhelds :S next stand alone console tho is the Dreamcast at 8million. Just need one killer AP and the sales could skyrocket tho like the 3ds did when it got mario3d land or mario kart.

Sony should just focus and make one massive reason to buy this and get a massive surge of interest before any 3rd parties fully turn their backs on it after the shaky start. I really doubt they'll want to offer something like a bunch of free games from psn if you buy it cos that was what they tried with the pspgo here in europe anyways, could buy it for 50euros and you got 10 free full games from psn, but it was just seen as the bargain bin console then that was already dead, it just basically signed its death cert with sonys handwriting.

The other articles were mistaken; it's still being sold at a loss per the sentence you quoted.

Okay, Gamescom just finished. So what do you guys think now from a sales prescriptive?

Crossbuy (Buy 1 version, get another version free digitally)
New IP, Tearaway from the devs of LittleBigPlanet(No date given)
Playstation Plus coming to Vita sometime in 2012
PS1 Classics on August 28th
Call of Duty Vita shown off (November release date and bundle revealed)
Killzone Vita shown off (No date given)
New Racthet & Clank game for PS3 also coming to Vita

Tearaway will shift vitas, new good IPs always sell a few consoles, that leads on to them picking up some other games defo anyone person who buys a vita with tearaway would be picking up uncharted and possibly gravity rush so once that game comes out you could be looking at 200k new vitas+2games with each would be a good money spinner and a great start for the vita to get off the ropes and back on its feet where it belongs.

It's doing similar to what PS3 and Xbox360 did back in the day. But those consoles had amazing comebacks later in their lives so Vita needs to improve things fast. Hopefully it'll go up from this holiday season onwards.

Crossbuy (Buy 1 version, get another version free digitally): Very bad idea, it diminishes the value of the Vita games
New IP, Tearaway from the devs of LittleBigPlanet(No date given): Good, anything new specially if exclusive for the handheld is great and can help move units
Playstation Plus coming to Vita sometime in 2012: Great, a question... do you have to pay twice to use service on the Vita and PS3? do you have to pay just a little more? nothing additional?
PS1 Classics on August 28th: Perfect, missing feature that many were waiting for.
Call of Duty Vita shown off (November release date and bundle revealed): Not very impresive trailer and the developer not very good, but it can move some units
Killzone Vita shown off (No date given): Not enough info, who is developing?
New Racthet & Clank game for PS3 also coming to Vita: if it does not have anything exclusive for the Vita it would not help the console.