Not quite, the 4080 Super eventually saw discounts
4080 never saw any discounts, didn't sell well as it was way too expensive, so they had to release 4080 Super that's the same card but cheaper. However, details matter - it wasn't a price drop of 4080, it was a new product with lower price. That's the view they work hard to uphold - they do not drop prices, they might release new cheaper product, but do not drop prices. Jensen was very clear about it in the few interviews I've seen few years back. It's about brand image, long term one. Lowering prices devalues them in the eyes of customers, so they will just not do that. And look at the 5080 price/performance... 4080S sold well enough, so they learned that it would be a perfect price for 5080 and here we are. I shall also remind here that 5070Ti doesn't have FE version - it's AIB only, there's no FE MSRP for it. Actually, all prices NVIDIA mentioned aren't really MSRP (that's just media and people unable to read properly it seems) - they're all shown on their website as "Starting at" which isn't MSRP, technically speaking. FE cards have their own pricing, but since only NVIDIA sells them, that's not MSRP, that's just FE price.
and availability absolutely improved after the initial launch period.
It did, but prices didn't move. FE also took quite a while to get there. However, currently they rebranded themselves as an AI company, not gaming one (as evidenced in their own words and on their website). Huge majority of production goes to the AI market, gamers get (relatively speaking) scraps only.
We're talking about within the lifecycle of a series, not the price jump to the next generation. Retailers have to move cards, and as we've already seen with the 5080, they won't sell out immediately if the price is too high.
Retailers can drop prices at a loss, just to move inventory. It doesn't mean NVIDIA dropped any prices - they do not do that.
They can get away with it for the first few months because of FOMO, but that wears off as more and more people get their hands on one. Once the queues are cleared and you have 10+ of a model in stock, they won't be able to add a few hundred to the price.
Likely one of the reasons NVIDIA keeps supply low, to prevent too quick market saturation. They openly used the same tactic with 4k series to sell 3k series first - though currently they already got rid of the 4k series, so it should be better in theory. But, again, AI products are the huge priority.
The 5090 is the only card with significant AI demands, but it's not in competition with these AMD products.
Enterprise market soaks almost all of the production, 5090 isn't part of that market. Prosumers will stull vacuum it out for many months to come, though.
My point being, nothing we see NVIDIA doing here is new, nor unexpected - it's the same exact story since 3k series, so we can easily predict how it will go.
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