Every once in a while I look up some of the recent sales information on the video game industry. Like most people in their later 20′s, I grew up on a healthy diet of Nintendo with the occasional mix of Sega. As such, I’m really happy to see Nintendo making a comeback in the video game industry with its Wii console and its DS Lite handheld system (I own both). But some of the information that you learn when looking into the video game industry’s sales is simply frightening. The following comes from an article that I recently read:

It turns out Sony has lost more money on the hardware side of the PS3 than it made from the stupidly successful Playstation 2.

Are you serious?! Everyone has a Playstation 2 and Sony managed to LOSE the money that it made on that system?!? If this information is accurate (and Lord knows how you would be able to verify it), then someone at Sony needs to be fired right now. The article goes on…

Microsoft reportedly lost $4 billion on the original Xbox and the Red Ring of Death cost $1 billion to put right on its own.

Gah!!! The original XBox may not have been as ubiquitous as the Playstation 2, but to lose that type of money and get back in the video gaming business in ludicrous. The same article notes how Nintendo is actually making money on each Wii sale because of the low cost to manufacture the hardware. Amazing.

In the video game wars it appears that success doesn’t come down to graphics or speed or any of the perks that come with the Sony and Microsoft systems. It appears that success is a function of fun and feasibility. And Nintendo has mastered that function.