Originally Posted by
Endless_Legend
One of Nintendo's big "secrets" (not really a secret) is that all the money that other companies pour into R&D to get better clock speeds and performance and such, they pour into refinement and power-efficiency and lowering production cost (and thus, unit cost)
That's why Nintendo systems are always a little bit underpowered, but always make money. (Although the Gamecube wasn't really that underpowered, it was about halfway between the PS2 and the Xbox in performance)