Wii Hardware To Be Profitable At Launch

Next Generation reports on comments by Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime, stating that the Wii will be profitable out of the gate. It's been well-publicized that the consoles offered by Sony and Microsoft are subsidized by those companies. From the article: "Nintendo, however, has traditionally avoided the 'razor and blades' business model by selling its consoles above what they cost to make. Fils-Aime confirmed to Reuters that the Wii would carry on the tradition. 'We will make a profit on the entire Wii proposition out of the box -- hardware and software,' he said. 'That really is a very different philosophy versus our competitors. We are a company that competes only in the interactive entertainment space so we have to make a profit on every thing we do.'" The comment is undoubtedly meant to assuage analysts nervous about the relatively late release date and somewhat higher than expected price for the Wii.

Strange concept

[dlc3007]

This is something new. Imagine a company making money by selling a product they manufacture. Bizarre. Wonder if this radical concept will ever catch on. It is truly shocking.

Re:nintendo is a game company

[Rob T Firefly]

At one point, yes they did own a taxi service and "love hotels"(which are not brothels, they are basically hotels rented by the hour with the express purpose of having consenting adults do things in them which one would rent a hotel by the hour for)

They got out of that business after all those complaints from male clients who just couldn't make it past World 2.

Re:nintendo is a game company

[kalirion]

"love hotels"(which are not brothels, they are basically hotels rented by the hour with the express purpose of having consenting adults do things in them which one would rent a hotel by the hour for)

Based on plenty of anime and manga, you can remove "adults", and perhaps "consenting" from that statement.

Re:No surprise here

[Calinous]

225 is a perfect square... Why would that be bizarre?

Re:econ 101

[bazorg]

But as far as we know Nintendo has never sold a system at a loss. They generally optimize during the design phase to keep manufacturing costs low
And not only Mario & Luigi get lower salaries than their GTA counterparts, as they also help sell merchandise items, which would be hard to do legally in the case of GTA and similar franchises.

Re:nintendo is a game company

[Scherf]

No no! It was because the receptionists kept telling them that the princess is in another castle!

Re:nintendo is a game company

[Lordpidey]

And don't forget to add a healthy serving of tentacle.