A report from Bloomberg Japan translated by Andriasang claims that Nintendo will lose money on every 3DS it sells once yesterday’s price cut is introduced.
Nintendo CEO Saturo Iwata justified this strategy at a Japanese press conference by saying that “such major moves were necessary in order to improve fiscal performance next year and beyond”.
Selling hardware at a loss is anything but new in the games industry, with both Sony and Microsoft employing the tactic in an effort to gain market traction.
In Microsoft’s case it has been a notable success, with years of loss making at its Xbox division finally now delivering the goods, having transformed itself into a profit making business.
But for Nintendo this is a very rare occurrence, with the company having succeeded in making a profit off every unit sold for many years now.