It’s true the Wii appears to be a bit odd in making a profit for Nintendo from the hardware from the point of release. I wouldn’t imagine Nintendo’s research budget was anything like the scale of Sony’s either, but against that the Cell will doubtless be cropping up in all sorts of high end consumer gadgetry which will be making a profit. As others have said, the PS3 is a high profile way of raising awareness of the Sony brand as well as the Cell, though as a division the console side used to prop up the rest of the business (see
here for an illustration of the impact slowing sales had) so Sony isn’t really capable of medium term losses of this nature.