The price does matter because it decides whether I buy a 4000 or 3000 card at all. If Nvidia wants to sell 3000 series, it needs to drop prices a lot. If Nvidia wants to sell 4080, it needs to drop prices a lot.
The price doesn't matter. Nvidia just wants to sell off its stockpile of 30-series GPUs. That's why 40-series prices are so high and the 4090 launched first.
In an unprecedented move, Nvidia has announced that the GeForce RTX 4080 12 GB graphics card has been "unlaunched". The company has also confirmed that the GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB will be purchasable starting on November 16.