Nintendo doesn’t expect to lose a lot of money on the Wii, president Satoru Iwata says. Usually console makers lose money on the consoles, and earn it back by licensing to 3rd party publishers.

“It is a strange notion that a game console always leads to mounting losses in the beginning,â€? he said. “We can’t promise we won’t even have a one yen loss, but we are not expecting an enormous loss.”

Microsoft has lost billions on its Xbox franchise, and Sony expects to lose $884 million when launching the PlayStaion 3, even if they sell at $500-600 per console.