I mean, demand always goes down for current gen when there is a new generation right around the corner.
Who wants to buy a current GPU when it will be worth less in just a couple of months?
If you ask me, pricing should be more dynamic.
By all means sell the latest and greatest at full price at launch, but then lower the price linearly over time.
The truth is, if you buy later than launch, you get the performance you paid for for less time before there is a replacement, so it should cost less.
If I ruled the world for a day I'd structure GPU pricing like this (using NVIDIA as an example).
Upon launch a 3080 is full price. Right before the 4000 series launches, the 3080 should cost the same as the upcoming 4070 (if their performance is similar)
Between launch and the next gen launch, that price should decay linearly on an almost daily basis to reflect the percentage of time that is left before replacement.
This would be a fair pricing model that doesn't screw over people who can't rush out and buy at launch, and may help reduce the scalping problem a bit, as they never have sufficient launch quantities because everyone tries to buy at launch with the current pricing model.
With time-based linear pricing decay, the demand should be smoother and more predictable, and there will be less opportunity for scalping. There is less of a sense of "I need to rush out and get it on launch day, or at the very least launch week, or I am getting a bad deal" like we have now.
Either that, or just freaking make adequate launch quantities before launching.
This garbage is getting old.