> My favorite example was I think it was one of the early xboxes was being sold for less than the cost of the hardware, expecting to make up the difference in l

> My favorite example was I think it was one of the early xboxes was being sold for less than the cost of the hardware, expecting to make up the difference in licensing on game sales. This is still common practice: Sony and Microsoft generally either sell their consoles to break even or at a loss. The only difference between then and now is that they've made it much harder to run alternate operating systems. As far as I'm aware, Nintendo is the only console manufacturer that actually tries to profit off of hardware sales.