Actually Sony isn't losing any money selling Playstation 1 hardware anymore. Now if you want to talk about Sony taking a BIG loss on each Playstation2 console they sell thats another matter.
When the Playstation first came out Sony took a loss on each Playstation 1 console they sold. But that hasn't been true for quite some time. Sony has consolidated and simpified (read they took somethings out} of the original Playstation design at least a couple of times. So its cheaper for Sony to make Playstations now compared to when the PS1 first came out. Also Sony has made and sold so many Playstations and ramped up production on the PS1 over the years. So the cost of making and selling each PS1 has dropped big time with the result of the PS1 long ago becoming firmly entrenched as part of mainstream culture {you don't have a playstation?!? Dayum!
}. You can say early adopters of a console who buy its software are helping pave the way for later buyers to get the system cheaper.
In addition Sony does have a licensing fee that game producers for its systems must pay.
[Edited by sbp on 12-21-2000 at 02:15 AM]