Sega lost money on every console prior to exiting the market.
Nintendo sold various consoles at a loss (Wii U).
The PlayStation 1 through 4 sold either at a loss or break even.
>, but their redesigns made them profitable
No one says consoles always sell at a loss. They are sold over 6-8 years and price drops are pretty conservative (until last gen where they ceased to be). Every conse eventually becomes profitable, but not in the years where they sell the most.
Nope. Take 1 example, the PS3. It lost money in 2007 & 2008, but became profitable in 2009. They sold 16 million PS3's in 2007 and 2008 out of a total 87 million. So approximately 20% of PS3's were sold at a loss.
And the PS3 is perhaps the console that was sold at the biggest loss at the beginning due to the horrendously expensive Cell chip.
It's kind of moot, anyways. The discussion is about the consoles of 2026 competing against Steam Machine. The PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2 are all currently being sold for positive margin.
But I do believe that was a unique case. Consoles don't typically "come back" later in life. The vita later on didn't. The Wii U and Xbox one didn't. The dreamcast sure didn't. Sony's big turnaround should be praised, but not accepted as a norm of business.
Those seven consoles significantly outnumber the 50 consoles that didn't.
Even the PS3 didn't sell 100 million units. Relative flops like the xbox one or the wii U are insignificant fractions of console sales.
Yes, I'm aware on how consoles are monetized. They take a loss in the first few years and make up for that with software sales, which they take a 30% cut on.
I'm not dispelling if the model isn't profitable, I'm simply stating that the hardware is historically sold at razor thin margins early on, if not outright a loss (until this generation)
as I said, 7 consoles.
> They take a loss in the first few years and make up for that with software sales, which they take a 30% cut on.
Some consoles took a loss in the first 1-2 years.
> until this generation
Nope. The early generations didn't sell at a loss. Atari 2600, NES, et cetera weren't. That practice started with PS1 / XBox and ended with PS4/XBone.
4 consoles 2 handhelds, and a hybrid (switch). I have no clue if the gameboy and DS were actually sold at a loss. These were pre-smartphone devices sold more like toys, so I can see them being manufactured for very cheaply in a pre-smartphone era with minimal peripheral requirements.
> That practice started with PS1 / XBox and ended with PS4/XBone.
Okay, fair enough. Atari and NES were very expensive for their time. Nintendo had a few generations to itself to revive the industry and I'm thankful, but I'm also glad their blunder ended up creating competiton in the market.
It does not mean that a device was sold cheaper than its own hardware
Basically, you have r&d but that is out of the topic