if you think 4% in 3 quarters is a good then man I don't know what to say. 4% in 3 quarters is what, 1.3% per quarter, yeah that isn't because of good products. That is because they have products in channel vs not having products in channel, but those products in channel are still not very attractive.
I made no judgement on it, simply stated the fact. And 4% higher market share without new products and inferior performance at the high-end is certainly a better result than one would expect.
Its not amount of sellable products end users can buy at the moment, its in the entirity of the life time of the product we are talking bout and when certain things are being launched.
Your question was very specific about profit within a single quarter, my comments are based on that initial assumption.
In regards to the rest, let's view it from another perspective, with actual numbers taken from the current Steam hardware survey. After adjusting the survey results for discrete graphics cards only, the performance segment ( GTX970 / R9 200 and higher) consists of less than 15%. 85% of the market is mainstream and entry-level.
Now let's imagine you know that you will release a new product roughly at the same time as your competitor and you know that they will release into the 15% first, with no product for the 85%. Do you try to sell into the same 15% or take a hit to margins and sell into the 85% where you have no competition for a while?
Was that their original plan? No idea. But given the current market situation, they stand to gain more from their strategy than from going after nVidia's new cards.