Nintendo has officially stated that their Wii U console will sell at a loss when it launches. The news was revealed at an investor briefing by Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata. He added that the console's price is "below cost," which, apparently, is the reason for the company's reduced annual net profit outlook.

"In addition to the yen's continuous appreciation, the Wii U hardware will have a negative impact on Nintendo's profits early after the launch because rather than determining a price based on its manufacturing cost, we selected one that consumers would consider to be reasonable. In this first half of the term before the launch of the Wii U, we were not able to make a profit on software for the system while we had to book a loss on the hardware, which is currently in production and will be sold below cost. Our loss has therefore widened during the second quarter in spite of bringing the Nintendo 3DS hardware back to profitability. Although we expect our financial performance to be revitalized, under these circumstances, unfortunately we cannot say that we will achieve "Nintendo-like" profits within this fiscal year."

Nintendo also revealed yesterday that the company experienced a loss of $351 million (approx.) for Q1 of its fiscal year and net profits of $75.2 million (down from $251 million).

Also, the PS3 sales are ahead of the Xbox 360 console sales in Europe sales, with Wii in third place.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is happily claiming it has achieved 70 million lifetime sales of its Xbox console.