And it's only available from their store, which doesn't have the same reach as Amazon.com or even Best Buy.

(There's a link on google.com, but that clearly worked so well for the Nexus phones)

There's a big difference between trying to sell an unsubsidized $600 phone and a $200 tablet.

The unsubsidized phone is already down to $349, down from $400 when they first put it on Play.

Nope, the Nexus 7 is getting sold in a number of different countries to start.

It's the Nexus Q that's US-only right now.

I can answer that: they aren't interested in advertising and selling the device to consumers. If they were, they wouldn't have been announced at a developer conference. Although oddly, they are advertising the Nexus 7 off the Google homepage.

By that logic, Retina Macbook Pros are only for developers too.

Do you really think that's so clear cut? I/O has visibility well outside the developer community, it gets covered in the mainstream media. Just today I read about it on the website of the most widely read German news magazine (an article is linked prominently on the front page and it's the lead article in the technology section).

Like Apple, Google can and probably is using their developer conference keynote to announce things to consumers.

Google definitely do run aggressive ad campaigns, although so far it's been limited to Chrome.

They are selling the device in almost all English speaking countries.

Full page ad in the A section of the WSJ today.