I suspect Bitmain is having their current fire sale in the hope of getting their money back out of the BM1385 chips they've already bought before they become almost worthless due to next-gen miners blowing them out of the water - and I have some doubt that Bitmain was expecting Bitfury to go public on THEIR next-gen chip much less start pushing it to anyone OTHER than huge farms.
I get the strong impression Bitmain's answer to the new bitFury chip hasn't even taped out yet, or taped out recently enough they aren't going to have a new miner available before the halfing - leaving them rather behind the curve on what should prove to be THE most important ASIC generation in Bitcoin mining history (other than perhaps the original generation gear).
Pretty much none of this fits with previous Bitmain action or logic.
I still agree with QuintLeo, the BM1385 chip has been possibly the worst chip Bitmain has ever developed besides the BM1382 for ROI + profit. S3s (BM1382) hardly profited with the difficulty rises even though the hop from BM1380 with more hashpower and efficiency was enormous. I knew this day was coming for bitmain, because there had to be a new chip coming out, and it just so happened to be before the halving. The only thing stopping Bitmain from using old S4 rackmounts and placing BM1385s on them and slapping on a "Antminer S8" sticker on is the fact that most people know:
1. the halving is coming
2. this gear is gonna be crap in 2 months.
BM1385s were a great improvement and it had to have happened eventually, so hopefully we can move past this and get BM1385s over with after the halving.