George H.W. Bush hospitalized for bronchitis

Former President George H.W. Bush has been hospitalized with bronchitis in Houston for six days, his spokesman said. (Tom Pennington / Getty Images / March 29, 2012)

By Joe Serna

November 29, 2012, 10:10 a.m.

Former President George H.W. Bush is being treated for bronchitis in Houston’s Methodist Hospital, officials there confirmed Thursday.

Bush, 88, has been in and out of the Texas Medical Center for treatment and is scheduled to be released within the next 72 hours, his representatives said in a statement. The 41st president is listed in stable condition.

The Houston Chronicle reported Bush has been in the hospital for about a week.

The former director of the CIA has been known for his vitality in spite of his advanced age. He celebrated his 75th, 80th, and 85th birthdays by going skydiving and joined President Clinton on a humanitarian trip overseas after the 2004 tsunami and visited New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Bush suffers from vascular Parkinson’s disease and missed his first Republican National Convention in decades earlier this year.

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Mayim Bialik files to end 9-year marriage in LA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Court records show Mayim Bialik filed for divorce from her husband of nine years on the same day she announced the couple's split in a blog post.

She cited irreconcilable differences with husband Michael Stone in the documents filed Nov. 21 in Los Angeles.

Bialik currently stars on the CBS comedy "The Big Bang Theory" and rose to fame as the star of the TV show "Blossom."

She has been a proponent of "attachment parenting" and the former couple have two sons together, ages 7 and 4. Bialik has said their parenting style was not a factor in the divorce and she is seeking joint custody of the children.

The 36-year-old wrote in her post last week that the divorce is "terribly sad, painful and incomprehensible" for children.

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Clearing the Fog Around Personality Disorders

For years they have lived as orphans and outliers, a colony of misfit characters on their own island: the bizarre one and the needy one, the untrusting and the crooked, the grandiose and the cowardly.

Their customs and rituals are as captivating as any tribe’s, and at least as mystifying. Every mental anthropologist who has visited their world seems to walk away with a different story, a new model to explain those strange behaviors.

This weekend the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association will vote on whether to adopt a new diagnostic system for some of the most serious, and striking, syndromes in medicine: personality disorders.

Personality disorders occupy a troublesome niche in psychiatry. The 10 recognized syndromes are fairly well represented on the self-help shelves of bookstores and include such well-known types as narcissistic personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder, as well as dependent and histrionic personalities.

But when full-blown, the disorders are difficult to characterize and treat, and doctors seldom do careful evaluations, missing or downplaying behavior patterns that underlie problems like depression and anxiety in millions of people.

The new proposal — part of the psychiatric association’s effort of many years to update its influential diagnostic manual — is intended to clarify these diagnoses and better integrate them into clinical practice, to extend and improve treatment. But the effort has run into so much opposition that it will probably be relegated to the back of the manual, if it’s allowed in at all.

Dr. David J. Kupfer, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and chairman of the task force updating the manual, would not speculate on which way the vote might go: “All I can say is that personality disorders were one of the first things we tackled, but that doesn’t make it the easiest.”

The entire exercise has forced psychiatrists to confront one of the field’s most elementary, yet still unresolved, questions: What, exactly, is a personality problem?

Habits of Thought

It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult.

Personality problems aren’t exactly new or hidden. They play out in Greek mythology, from Narcissus to the sadistic Ares. They percolate through biblical stories of madmen, compulsives and charismatics. They are writ large across the 20th century, with its rogues’ gallery of vainglorious, murderous dictators.

Yet it turns out that producing precise, lasting definitions of extreme behavior patterns is exhausting work. It took more than a decade of observing patients before the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin could draw a clear line between psychotic disorders, like schizophrenia, and mood problems, like depression or bipolar disorder.

Likewise, Freud spent years formulating his theories on the origins of neurotic syndromes. And Freudian analysts were largely the ones who, in the early decades of the last century, described people with the sort of “confounded identities” that are now considered personality disorders.

Their problems were not periodic symptoms, like moodiness or panic attacks, but issues rooted in longstanding habits of thought and feeling — in who they were.

“These therapists saw people coming into treatment who looked well put-together on the surface but on the couch became very disorganized, very impaired,” said Mark F. Lenzenweger, a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Binghamton. “They had problems that were neither psychotic nor neurotic. They represented something else altogether.”

Several prototypes soon began to emerge. “A pedantic sense of order is typical of the compulsive character,” wrote the Freudian analyst Wilhelm Reich in his 1933 book, “Character Analysis,” a groundbreaking text. “In both big and small things, he lives his life according to a preconceived, irrevocable pattern.”

Others coalesced too, most recognizable as extreme forms of everyday types: the narcissist, with his fragile, grandiose self-approval; the dependent, with her smothering clinginess; the histrionic, always in the thick of some drama, desperate to be the center of attention.

In the late 1970s, Ted Millon, scientific director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Personology and Psychopathology, pulled together the bulk of the work on personality disorders, most of it descriptive, and turned it into a set of 10 standardized types for the American Psychiatric Association’s third diagnostic manual. Published in 1980, it is a best seller among mental health workers worldwide.

These diagnostic criteria held up well for years and led to improved treatments for some people, like those with borderline personality disorder. Borderline is characterized by an extreme neediness and urges to harm oneself, often including thoughts of suicide. Many who seek help for depression also turn out to have borderline patterns, making their mood problems resistant to the usual therapies, like antidepressant drugs.

Today there are several approaches that can relieve borderline symptoms and one that, in numerous studies, has reduced hospitalizations and helped aid recovery: dialectical behavior therapy.

This progress notwithstanding, many in the field began to argue that the diagnostic catalog needed a rewrite. For one thing, some of the categories overlapped, and troubled people often got two or more personality diagnoses. “Personality Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified,” a catchall label meaning little more than “this person has problems” became the most common of the diagnoses.

It’s a murky area, and in recent years many therapists didn’t have the time or training to evaluate personality on top of everything else. The assessment interviews can last hours, and treatments for most of the disorders involve longer-term, specialized talk therapy.

Psychiatry was failing the sort of patients that no other field could possibly help, many experts said.

“The diagnoses simply weren’t being used very much, and there was a real need to make the whole system much more accessible,” Dr. Lenzenweger said.

Resisting Simplification 

It was easier said than done.

The most central, memorable, and knowable element of any person — personality — still defies any consensus.

A team of experts appointed by the psychiatric association has worked for more than five years to find some unifying system of diagnosis for personality problems.

The panel proposed a system based in part on a failure to “develop a coherent sense of self or identity.” Not good enough, some psychiatric theorists said.

Later, the experts tied elements of the disorders to distortions in basic traits.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 29, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of traits included in the proposed criteria for narcissistic personality disorder.   The final proposal relies on two personality traits, not four.

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Third-quarter GDP growth revised upward to 2.7%

Deputy business editor Joe Bel Bruno and economy reporter Don Lee talk with Kent H. Hughes, director of the Program on America and the Global Economy at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy grew much faster in the third quarter than first estimated, but the latest government report laid bare the vulnerabilities for the recovery as politicians struggle to break the stalemate over government spending and tax policies.

Although the nation's economic growth rate was revised to a more healthy 2.7% for the third quarter from the 2% pace initially estimated, the Commerce Department said consumer and business spending was softer than previously thought.

Company spending on equipment and software fell for the first time since spring 2009. Experts said the drop-off reflected business leaders' worries about the so-called fiscal cliff — a combination of government spending cuts and higher taxes that begins in January unless Congress acts.

Quiz: How much do you know about the 'fiscal cliff'?

"Uncertainty has a cost," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago. Looking at the details of Thursday's economic report, she noted: "The headline [2.7%] figure is very misleading."

Growth was driven largely by companies building up inventory and the federal government stepping up its spending, mostly for defense. But those are temporary factors. Stockpiling in one quarter tends to lead a drop in corporate purchases in the next, and the quarterly surge in federal military expenditures was most likely an anomaly.

Without stronger contributions from consumers and businesses, the economy is likely to remain stuck in what has been more than three years of a sluggish recovery. Moreover, cutbacks in business investment are particularly worrisome because they are building blocks for future growth.

Gross domestic product, or the total value of goods and services produced in the nation, expanded on average at an annual rate of about 2% in the first nine months, about where growth has been since the recovery officially began in mid-2009.

At that mediocre pace, the U.S. is unlikely to create jobs fast enough to bring down the current 7.9% unemployment rate any time soon.

Experts widely expect the economy to turn ugly quickly if the country fails to avert the fiscal impasse, which by some estimates would amount to more than $700 billion in federal tax increases and spending reductions next year. If that happens, the economy probably would fall into recession next year, and the unemployment rate could jump back up near double digits.

But Thursday's report also showed the underlying potential for the economy to break out of its long funk.

Corporate profits rose 3.5% in the third quarter, the strongest increase this year. The gain was entirely borne by financial institutions, evidence of the strength of the American banking industry.

U.S. corporations in general are in solid financial shape and sitting on some $1.7 trillion in cash, funds that could be unleashed should confidence and demand grow.

The report also indicated that U.S. net exports were stronger than previously thought. Global trade slowed this year amid financial turmoil in Europe and a sharp economic slowdown in China.

But China's slide in growth appears to have stopped and the Eurozone is showing signs of stabilizing, which could give a boost to U.S. manufacturers and other industries.

At home, the recovering housing market is now clearly adding some juice to the economy. In the third quarter, residential investment rose 14.2% after increasing 8.5% in the second quarter. A separate report Thursday showed that pending home sales in October hit a new two-year high.

Consumer confidence also has been rising since summer and, by some measures, is at a five-year high. Although Thursday's GDP report showed only modest gains in personal incomes in the third quarter, that too could rise if businesses step up their restrained hiring in anticipation of stronger demand.

"Remove that fiscal cliff anchor and you have an economic engine that is raring to bounce back," Bernard Baumohl, an economist at the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, N.J., wrote in a research note Thursday.

For the last three months of the year, many analysts expect lackluster economic growth. Most are projecting GDP to advance 1% to 2%, in part because of the earlier inventory buildup and caution over the fiscal impasse. But the projections for next year range from a decline in GDP to an increase as high as 3.5%.

In a report this week, economists at Moody's Analytics, a research firm in West Chester, Pa., laid out three scenarios for the economy based on what happens with the fiscal impasse.

If policymakers kick the can down the road, delaying for months or a year all the tax hikes and government spending cuts, the economy would grow a solid 3.1% next year but more slowly over the long range because the country would eventually have to pay the cost of running unsustainably high budget deficits, Moody's economists said.

Should policymakers agree to reduce the amount of pending tax increases and fiscal cuts significantly and strike a deal on the debt ceiling, the economy would grow 2% next year but then accelerate to double that rate in 2014 and 2015.

The darkest near-term picture, of course, is if all the tax increases and fiscal contraction occur. While that would slash the deficit, GDP also would be sliced by $555 billion, or 3.4%, next year as businesses, consumers and investors pull back. That would trigger at least a mild recession and higher unemployment — and possibly much worse.

"Fiscal sustainability would ultimately be achieved, but at a great cost," they said.

don.lee@latimes.com

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Anthem Blue Cross seeks to raise individual policyholders' rates

California's largest for-profit health insurer, Anthem Blue Cross, is seeking to raise rates an average of 18% for more than 630,000 individual policyholders, drawing scrutiny from regulators and the ire of consumers already struggling with soaring premiums.

Some Anthem customers may see rates rise as much as 25% in February under the company's proposal at a time when medical inflation is running at historic lows nationwide.

The increases are among several others proposed by California insurers, including Aetna Inc. and Health Net Inc. California insurance regulators will take the next month to review whether these rate increases are warranted, but state officials don't have the authority to reject them for being unreasonable.

Quiz: Test your healthcare knowledge

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said insurers can expect a thorough review by his agency.

"It's fair to say policyholders are dismayed time and time again at these rate increases they are forced to pay," he said.

Anthem customer Ellie Podway, 55, of Pasadena said she and her husband received a letter the day before Thanksgiving informing them of a 14% rate increase to $881 a month, effective in February. Since 2010, Anthem has boosted the couple's monthly premium 81%, she said.

"This is out of control," Podway said. "You feel like you're being sucker punched over and over."

Anthem, a unit of Indianapolis insurance giant WellPoint Inc., isn't alone in levying double-digit rate hikes.

Aetna, the nation's third-largest health insurer, wants to boost premiums 19%, on average, for nearly 70,000 individual customers in California, effective in April. Woodland Hills insurer Health Net raised rates last month 14%, on average, for more than 30,000 individual policyholders and their dependents statewide. Blue Shield of California is expected to file for rate increases for individual customers next week.

Industrywide, health insurers have been helped by historically low increases in medical costs the last few years as consumers postponed doctor's visits and other care to avoid out-of-pocket expenses in a sluggish economy. U.S. healthcare spending has grown less than 4% annually the last three years, according to government figures, the lowest rates in more than 50 years.

In its rate request, Anthem said its medical costs for this segment of the business are increasing nearly 11% and what it actually pays is rising 13.5% after adjusting for its portion after customer deductibles.

With those cost pressures, Anthem said that the profit margin on its individual insurance business in California is less than 1% this year and that it expects to lose money next year even with these proposed rate increases.

In addition to the 18% rate increase for about 630,000 customers, Anthem is seeking a separate rate hike of 15%, on average, for an additional 100,000 policyholders whose plans are regulated by the California Department of Managed Health Care. An agency spokeswoman said it is reviewing Anthem's proposed rate increase and those of other companies.

"We share our members' concerns over the rising cost of healthcare," Anthem spokesman Darrel Ng said. "The economic downturn continues to lead many healthy individuals to avoid purchasing coverage or to drop coverage altogether, leaving an insured pool that utilizes significantly more services."

Overall as a company, WellPoint has earned $2.2 billion in profit in the first nine months of this year and $2.6 billion in 2011. WellPoint runs Blue Cross plans in California and 13 other states.

In recent years, the rising cost of medical care and rate hikes for health insurance have been a major political issue that prompted congressional approval of President Obama's Affordable Care Act, much of which takes effect in January 2014, and calls in California for tougher state regulation of health premiums.

Anthem tried to raise rates up to 39% in 2010, sparking national outrage and helping Obama win support for his healthcare law. Anthem was forced to back down and accepted maximum rate increases of 20%. This year Anthem raised premiums 8% to 14%, on average, for about 700,000 individual policyholders and their family members.

The state's largest nonprofit health plan, Kaiser Permanente, is seeking an average increase of 8% for 220,422 customers, effective in January, according to state records. UnitedHealth Group Inc., the nation's largest health insurer, said it is trying to raise premiums 10% for about 5,500 individual policyholders in January.

These increases would affect many of the 2 million Californians who buy individual policies, but not the majority of Californians who are insured through employer group plans.

California employers said their health benefit costs rose 5.5% in 2012, according to a survey by benefits consultant Mercer.

A ballot measure scheduled for November 2014 would give the California insurance commissioner the same authority to approve or reject health insurance rate increases that the department now has over property and auto policies. Consumer Watchdog, the Santa Monica group that in 1988 championed Proposition 103 — which enacted rate controls on those other types of insurance — had tried to get the health insurance measure on this year's ballot.

Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, said the ballot initiative would enable the insurance commissioner to order refunds retroactive to November 2012 if health insurance rates are deemed excessive.

"Two years from now, the insurance companies might be writing big checks to consumers," Court said.

chad.terhune@latimes.com

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Oh, Yoko! Ono's fashion line gropes for Lennon

NEW YORK (AP) — You remember that Beatles classic "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"? Turns out Yoko Ono had other things in mind.

Ono's new menswear collection inspired by John Lennon includes pants with large handprints on the crotch, tank tops with nipple cutouts and even a flashing LED bra.

The collection of menswear for Opening Ceremony is based on a series of drawings she sketched as a gift for Lennon for their wedding day in 1969. Ono said she the illustrations were designs for clothing and accessories to celebrate Lennon's "hot bod."

Also in the collection are a "butt hoodie" with an outline suggesting its name, pants with cutouts at the behind, a jock strap with an LED light, open-toed boots and a transparent chest plaque with bells and a leather neck strap.

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Well: Weight Loss Surgery May Not Combat Diabetes Long-Term

Weight loss surgery, which in recent years has been seen as an increasingly attractive option for treating Type 2 diabetes, may not be as effective against the disease as it was initially thought to be, according to a new report. The study found that many obese Type 2 diabetics who undergo gastric bypass surgery do not experience a remission of their disease, and of those that do, about a third redevelop diabetes within five years of their operation.

The findings contrast with the growing perception that surgery is essentially a cure for Type II diabetes. Earlier this year, two widely publicized studies reported that surgery worked better than drugs, diet and exercise in causing a remission of Type 2 diabetes in overweight people whose blood sugar was out of control, leading some experts to call for greater use of surgery in treating the disease. But the studies were small and relatively short, lasting under two years.

The latest study, published in the journal Obesity Surgery, tracked thousands of diabetics who had gastric bypass surgery for more than a decade. It found that many people whose diabetes at first went away were likely to have it return. While weight regain is a common problem among those who undergo bariatric surgery, regaining lost weight did not appear to be the cause of diabetes relapse. Instead, the study found that people whose diabetes was most severe or in its later stages when they had surgery were more likely to have a relapse, regardless of whether they regained weight.

“Some people are under the impression that you have surgery and you’re cured,” said Dr. Vivian Fonseca, the president for medicine and science for the American Diabetes Association, who was not involved in the study. “There have been a lot of claims about how wonderful surgery is for diabetes, and I think this offers a more realistic picture.”

The findings suggest that weight loss surgery may be most effective for treating diabetes in those whose disease is not very advanced. “What we’re learning is that not all diabetic patients do as well as others,” said Dr. David E. Arterburn, the lead author of the study and an associate investigator at the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle. “Those who are early in diabetes seem to do the best, which makes a case for potentially earlier intervention.”

One of the strengths of the new study was that it involved thousands of patients enrolled in three large health plans in California and Minnesota, allowing detailed tracking over many years. All told, 4,434 adult diabetics were followed between 1995 and 2008. All were obese, and all underwent Roux-en-Y operations, the most popular type of gastric bypass procedure.

After surgery, about 68 percent of patients experienced a complete remission of their diabetes. But within five years, 35 percent of those patients had it return. Taken together, that means that most of the subjects in the study, about 56 percent — a figure that includes those whose disease never remitted — had no long-lasting remission of diabetes after surgery.

The researchers found that three factors were particularly good predictors of who was likely to have a relapse of diabetes. If patients, before surgery, had a relatively long duration of diabetes, had poor control of their blood sugar, or were taking insulin, then they were least likely to benefit from gastric bypass. A patient’s weight, either before or after surgery, was not correlated with their likelihood of remission or relapse.

In Type 2 diabetes, the beta cells that produce insulin in the pancreas tend to wear out as the disease progresses, which may explain why some people benefit less from surgery. “If someone is too far advanced in their diabetes, where their pancreas is frankly toward the latter stages of being able to produce insulin, then even after losing a bunch of weight their body may not be able to produce enough insulin to control their blood sugar,” Dr. Arterburn said.

Nonetheless, he said it might be the case that obese diabetics, even those whose disease is advanced, can still benefit from gastric surgery, at least as far as their quality of life and their risk factors for heart disease and other complications are concerned.

“It’s not a surefire cure for everyone,” he said. “But almost universally, patients lose weight after weight loss surgery, and that in and of itself may have so many health benefits.”

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Man suing Facebook pleads not guilty to criminal fraud charges

Paul Ceglia, center, leaves the federal court in Manhattan after pleading not guilty to mail fraud and wire fraud charges. (Peter Foley / Bloomberg / November 28, 2012)

By Jessica Guynn

November 28, 2012, 4:50 p.m.

Paul Ceglia has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges that he doctored and destroyed evidence in his lawsuit against Facebook Inc. and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

The New York man who has become famous for suing Facebook entered his plea in a hearing Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. A federal jury indicted Ceglia on charges of mail fraud and wire fraud. Each of the charges carries a maximum of 20 years in prison if he is convicted.

Ceglia has said for years that he has a 2003 contract that entitles him to half of Zuckerberg’s stake in Facebook. Now federal prosecutors are alleging he faked the contract.

Ceglia has had a series of lawyers who have represented him in his civil case, the latest of which, Dean Boland, asked to withdraw from the case last month.

Boland has denied that his request has anything to do with his client’s criminal charges.

Ceglia has asked that Boland not be permitted to withdraw from his case because his indictment will make it difficult for him to find another attorney. He indicated that Boland has had threats made against him.

Facebook attorney Orin Snyder asked that Boland’s reasons for wanting to withdraw from the case be made public. Boland has until Dec. 4 to respond.

ALSO:

Federal judge orders Paul Ceglia to pay fine in Facebook case

Lawyer for New York man suing Facebook wants out of the case

Man suing Facebook arrested, accused of scheme to defraud the company

Follow me on Twitter @jguynn

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Alleged WikiLeaks source says he was illegally punished in jail

A key pretrial hearing for Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of giving classified material to the website WikiLeaks, which then made it public, began Tuesday in a case that highlights the government’s resolve to keep war and diplomatic material secret.

Manning, who has been charged on 22 counts, faces life in prison if convicted of aiding the enemy, the most serious charge. His court-martial is scheduled for February.

A former intelligence analyst in Baghdad in 2009 and 2010, Manning is accused of sending hundreds of thousands of logs about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and more than 250,000 diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.

The hearing at a military court at Ft. Meade outside Baltimore is scheduled to run through Sunday. Manning is expected to testify at some point. It would be the first time he has spoken publicly about the case and the conditions of his detainment since his arrest in 2010.

The defense will argue that all charges should be dismissed because Manning was subjected to “unlawful pretrial punishment,” according to a post on the website of his supporters, the Bradley Manning Support Network.

Manning will get a chance to testify about his treatment. His lawyers argue that he was illegally punished by being put alone in a cell for nine months at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. Military judges can dismiss all charges if pretrial punishment is particularly egregious, but that rarely happens, though the time in incarceration can be credited toward the sentencing.

“At this extremely important hearing, Bradley’s lawyer David Coombs ... will present evidence that brig psychiatrists opposed the decision to hold Bradley in solitary, and that brig commanders misled the public when they said that Bradley’s treatment was for ‘Prevention of Injury,' " his supporters said.

Manning has offered to take responsibility by pleading guilty to reduced charges. The military has not ruled on that offer.

Manning was in the brig from July 2010 to April 2011. The military argues the treatment there was proper since he classified as a maximum-security detainee. He was later moved to Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., where he was reevaluated and given a medium-security classification.

A United Nations investigator called the conditions of Manning's imprisonment cruel, inhuman and degrading, but stopped short of calling it torture.

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The Wii U sells out in its first week: Evidence of a Nintendo comeback?

The latest console from the videogame pioneer is flying off the shelves. But are the kids really still into Mario and Zelda?

Earlier this year, Nintendo posted its first annual loss in three decades, a grim omen for the pathbreaking videogame maker that introduced the world to classic characters like Mario, Donkey Kong, and Link. The Japanese company has struggled amidst an industry-wide decline in the sales of consoles and games, a trend partly attributed to the ever-growing popularity of tablets and smartphones. Nintendo’s last breakout success was the Wii, released in 2006, and there have been serious doubts that its successor, the Wii U, could sell as many units. However, since the Wii U went on sale in North America on Nov. 18, Nintendo has completely sold out of all 400,000 consoles shipped to retailers. “As soon as the Wii U hits the shelf, it’s selling out,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, the head of Nintendo’s U.S. operations.

The Wii U’s early success is a surprising indication of “strong demand for the company’s next generation of videogame devices,” says Ian Sherr at The Wall Street Journal. And during the week of Nov. 18, Nintendo also sold 300,000 units of the original Wii, as well as more than 500,000 units of its portable DS and 3DS systems, which could reflect a rebound in consumer demand as the economy continues its long slog of a recovery from the Great Recession. Nintendo says it expects to sell 5.5 million Wii U systems by the end of March 2013, the end of its fiscal year.

However, it’s important to remember that “Nintendo has a very dedicated audience that craves almost anything new the company has to offer, not unlike Apple’s fans,” says Nick Wingfield at The New York Times. “The real test of the Wii U’s durability will come when the product is in better supply and more casual gamers, who don’t dream about Mario and Zelda in their sleep, can more easily buy it.” In addition, rivals Sony and Microsoft are expected to unveil their new consoles sometime in 2013, putting extra pressure on Nintendo. 

And perhaps most importantly, Nintendo has to sell games. The Wii U — which retails for $ 299.99, and $ 349.99 for a more powerful model — is being sold at a loss. Nintendo hopes that users will continue to buy games in the years to come, particularly those that aren’t sold on other systems, such as the latest installments in the “Super Mario Bros.” and “Legend of Zelda” franchises. That’s among the keys to Nintendo’s future profitability.

Sources: The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal

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