Unless You're Nintendo, Game Consoles Are Expensive

At the Games Convention Developers Dave Perry from Earthworm Jim developer Shiny Entertainment stated that Sony lost more money selling PS3 at a loss than it made during the five years of PlayStation 2 peak sales. That figure is estimated as being in the US$3 billion ballpark. The data that Perry cited came from DFC Intelligence. Not taking a stance on the "console war", Perry was using this data to point out how much of an investment Sony was putting in the PS3.

Microsoft also has lost a lot of money on the Xbox 360 -- that Red Ring of Death clusterfuck cost the company a billion dollars. Microsoft lost $4 billion on the original Xbox, and Sony, of course, was in the red with the PS2 for the first few years it launched. Seems like only Nintendo has this making-money-on-game-consoles schtick down.

Sony Has Lost More on the PS3 Than it Made on PS2 [1up via The Escapist]

Okay, didn't know Sony lost more on the PS3 than they gained on the PS2, but this is still practically old news. I'm only posting it because Kotaku failed to point out how this was so obvious.

seriously how rich must nintendo be, the have the best selling hardware and software in both console and handeld markets

does it have to do with price drops? Nintendo is the only one who didn't drop their consoles and most of their first party titles prices and still get away with it.:o

If I remember correctly they have around US$ 9 billion in bank ( 11 if you count short term investments ).

More than anything else, I think this points out that Nintendo's strategy is the only one out of the big three which is truly sustainable. Hell, sticking to profiting off hardware got them through the GameCube pretty well, even if their brand name had almost declined into irrelevance at that point. Granted, Microsoft and Sony have much deeper pockets to dig into, but they have their shareholders to answer to as well, and it's never easy explaining to them how a few billion dollars went down the drain.

Actually nvm. delete this post.

I anticipate one or both of the other two will sell their next systems at a profit.

screw profitability - give me earthworm jim on VC plz!

Well, the wii (judging by its size) cost a helluva lot less than a PS3 to produce, so no wonder they can sell the thing so cheaply and still make a profit