Their greedy manager response to these two conditions was to pass their loss on to their customers.
What then was the reason for the $8000 price of the 1Ds, the 1Ds Mk II, the 1Ds Mk III, and the $6700 (?) price of the 1D X? It doesn't seem to depend much on economic conditions.
Instead of pricing the D3X fairly at $5,495 or less Nikon released the camera at an astounding $8,000 rip off price.
Actually Nikon's official response is (quoting from memory since I don't have the article with me) this: they looked at competing products such as the 1Ds Mk III, which was priced at around $7000, and medium format cameras and simply priced the D3X at a point where they thought it was fairly priced considering the features and image quality and the competition's products. It is a specialized product for a small market of professionals who must have it.
Economic conditions have little to do with the pricing. +-10% maybe. In any way it was 8000 EUR when new, and today it sells for 6000 EUR so the price has come down due to it no longer being the newest model (though still Nikon's only high resolution FX camera).
The D3 was also priced against competing products which was the 1D Mk II or III (don't remember which), and since it was full frame and produced better image quality it was a bit more expensive. But not unduly more expensive. By the way today the 1Ds Mk III is more expensive than the D3X, and significantly so. This is probably because the Nikon product is selling a bit better as it is the only high resolution FX model in Nikon's lineup whereas the 1Ds Mk III has to share the market with the 5D Mk II.
Look at the pricing of the D3 and D700 - which are almost identical cameras except for the housing. The other is half the price of the latter. This "other half" is just based on the lower volume of sales of the D3 chassis cameras (since most amateurs don't want a big durable casing like that) and the fact that it's a professional market where the customer is willing to pay more and expects to get a bit better sealing and robustness. And of course the fact that when the D3 was new, there was no D700. You could say that the difference in price between D3 and D700 was just a lot of hot air, but the reality of it is that
a company has the legal obligation to make money for its shareholders . That's why they ask as much as they can for a product intended for a market which really needs it (i.e. the D3s, D3X etc.) For consumer products such as the D700 they sell it for less since the market can pay less. Nothing here has to do with how many pixels it has. And the price fluctuations due to economic conditions are minor.
