Why would they lose money? Design you hardware intelligently and you can have powerful hardware still sold at a profit or cost. 

It's not obvious by that statement in any way. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, etc, and even software developers, all decide internally when to speak about something.
When Sony invited the press to their PS4 reveal event, they did not mention that it was PS4 that they were showing. When asked about it just weeks before, they denied the PS4's existence. Likewise, as Mark Cery told us in an interview, some years ago when Sony went around taking feedback from developers for what they would like to see in a next gen console, when asked if these were questions about PS4, they blatantly denied it. Even though as Mrk said, it was obviously to the devs that that's what it was. He still weren't allowed to say it though.

Nintendo are not going to say more than what they have planned to say at any given time, every time they get interviewed by someone. Especially a local newspaper, such as in the case you're refering to. They have never told us anything about a release day, so they will not give us a time frame until the date on the calendar reaches the day they've decided to do so. Otherwise, we'd find out about each companie's plan to release a new game or console every time we interview them on January 1st of every year.

No, that's not how it works.
Nintendo began development on Majora's Mask 3D immediately after they released Ocarina of Time 3D in June 2011.
Yet at E3 2012, Miyamoto stated that "a 3D remake was still under consideration."

That's around 1 year after they started development, and yes that is a lie.

Companies will even lie and misslead when they need to. But in this case, it's not even a lie. They just said they will reveal info about the NX this year.
Them not talking about when they plan to unveil it or release it, in the first local newspaper interview they get during the year, means exactly zero.
Which again, is still more than Sony said about PS4, the very day before they unveiled it.

They will never reveal more than they have planned to reveal at any given time. If they have planned to announce more at an event or a Direct, they will do so, and say no more than what we already know when interviewed before that.

Besides they don't outright lie, they keep it vague, wich is important. But Nintendo's president also said they wont be rushing anything into the market. So... get out of that one.

Third form?  You mean like a tablet?

...now I kind of want an NX tablet (or mini-tablet) form factor with analog sticks and buttons.