They're taking a bigger hit than that I think.  Especially if Sony's Blu-Ray player costs anywhere near the retail price of $1000.

nothing new there, you dont expect MS is making money with the xbox, or Nintendo with the Wii, money is made with the games.

Every console maker lose cash with their console on the first 2 years.
However, they get cash off every game release, as game company got to pay fees per sell to be able to sell their game for X or Y console.

...actually, the Nintendo Wii is making a profit per console sold, and Microsoft is getting close to leveling out/making a profit with the 360.

http://play.tm/story/8574
http://www.techspot.com/news....re.html

Sony is just forcing Blu-Ray down our throats, which is making PS3 prices go up like mad.

Here's a tip to Sony: if the console costs 600 bucks a pop and you still can't profit from it, you're doing something wrong.

Not surprised.  This is the console wars.  Sony and X-Box have always been trying to break the video barrier.  Getting better and better graphics.  As such they need really high end hardware.  BUT people aren't going to throw down $800 bucks (well... some people anyway) just for eye candy.  So they take the hit hoping that once people get hooked on it they can make a profit on the games.

Nintendo, however, is infinetly smarter and rather then compete on the graphics level, competes on the fun level.  They can throw out more games with less money.

Also, the Blue-ray vs HD war is shown here in it's fullest.  Who will win?  Only time will tell.

Nintendo sells their consoles for a profit. They're the only ones out of the 3 that do it.

Historically Nintendo's been able to go from loss to profit more quickly than competitors, as far as consoles are concerned.  But yeah, this time around they decided to just profit from the start.  And they're still cheaper than everyone else.

I believe they've always sold for profit.