"Amazon is also clearly way ahead on this model. At the Kindle launch event last week, Jeff Bezos highlighted that Amazon does not make money on the Kindle, it

"Amazon is also clearly way ahead on this model. At the Kindle launch event last week, Jeff Bezos highlighted that Amazon does not make money on the Kindle, it makes money on the content it sells on top of the Kindle." And Nintendo has been aware of this since the 80s. Consoles have been closed platforms with razor thin to loss leader margins on hardware for over thirty years now. It's only that the development model itself has shifted with tablets and smartphones, they're a bit more open than they used to be.