Ahfung
The real issue I see here is one of bad PR for NVidia. Like Intel, they are creating the perception that, given the chance, they will gouge the consumer. Several things can happen here:
1) Consumers will pony up these ridiculous sums of cash - not likely
2) 3D card purchases will become stratified across different NVidia chipset releases - possibly
3) There will be a negative backlash and people will start buying "bang for the buck" from anybody but NVidia - possibly
My prediction is that #3 will happen. NVidia will milk consumers as much as possible, build up their war chests, get fat and lazy and then ride out the competition when it finally comes (i.e., Intel/3dfx). The result will be that we will have paid enormous amounts of money to a company that stops innovating. Another company will come along that will be seen as a small, aggressive, innovator (i.e., NVidia in the late 90's) and people will begin to buy their products - even if they are inferior, just because they are not from NVidia (i.e., AMD K6-2 vs the Intel PII).
History keeps repeating itself. Power corrupts. The only suckers are those that think there are "good-guys" (i.e., NVidiots).
Cheers,
Napalm