I'm curious. Economically speaking, what would happen if Nvidia pulled a "Steam" and had a "February sale" where some models of video card were discounted enough to lead to a massive spike in sales numbers?
A big enough discount to generate a greater total net return on sales for the quarter despite the fact that they were sold at a lower profit margin per individual sale?
Assuming limitations like "you must create an account with a residential shipping address that can receive no more than x cards at the discounted price per street address" or some such to limit scalping, would simply showing increased profits do them any good?
Or is the problem due to a lack of product quantity?
Steam can do massive numbers spikes because they have essentially infinite inventory. The whole reason scalping video cards works is that Nvidia can not make as many as people want, even at full retail price. The existence of scalpers implies that Nvidia could raise prices, sell slightly fewer units at higher margin and get greater total return.
I'm curious. Economically speaking, what would happen if Nvidia pulled a "Steam" and had a "February sale" where some models of video card were discounted enough to lead to a massive spike in sales numbers? A big enough discount to generate a greater total net return on sales for the quarter despite the fact that they were sold at a lower profit margin per individual sale? Assuming limitations like "you must create an account with a residential shipping address that can receive no more than x cards at the discounted price per street address" or some such to limit scalping, would simply showing increased profits do them any good?
Or is the problem due to a lack of product quantity?
Steam can do massive numbers spikes because they have essentially infinite inventory. The whole reason scalping video cards works is that Nvidia can not make as many as people want, even at full retail price. The existence of scalpers implies that Nvidia could raise prices, sell slightly fewer units at higher margin and get greater total return.
Which is why their latest generation of cards costs almost a thousand dollars or more.
I still don't understand why anyone would pay those prices vs AMD cards now.