I think Flanker is right about this one. Even if they sell hundreds at a time to game/CAD/science developers that doesn't even come close to the mass public numbers. If this card was actually desired by more people then they would produce more and the retail cost would be much lower. Let's say it was a 6800GT-like popular card and they made a million of them. With those numbers in the market there's no way they would be able to still sell them for that price, they would be killing themselves. We must remember any corporation's main goal is to make profits. That's right people, they're not trying to help you, they're trying to help themselves, they just happen to help some other people in the process.
Here's a quote from Civilization IV which I like "[Corporation] An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
Ambrose Bierce