AFAIK Nintendo is not necessarily in the business of losing money on hardware, especially if you count accessories like their controllers. I'd need to see numbers to believe that they lose money on the Switch, I suspect that thing is profitable.

> I suspect that thing is profitable.

According to a Bloomberg article from January 2017 (just before the release of the Switch) concerning Nintendo's yearly earnings report,

> While game consoles are usually sold at a loss early in their life cycles, the Switch will be profitable from the start, Nintendo said.

Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20170131084504/https://www.bloom... (the URL also works without web.archive.org, but the current version contains a paywall)

Microsoft recently confirmed that they have always lost money on their consoles (during the Apple vs Epic proceedings). In contrast, Nintendo usually makes a profit on selling their hardware.

Yeah, generally gaming hardware is a loss leader

This is the "SaaS-in-a-box" business model.