There is no chance that XB will launch at a higher price than Sony unless it is much more powerful. More realistically, MS will try to edge out PS in overall "power" (whatever that means), while matching them in price. I think MS will heavily subsidize their system, but only if needed because of Sony doing the same. In fact, if, despite MS' best efforts, PS ends up more powerful, I wouldn't be surprised if MS subsidized the hardware enough to launch at a lower price. MS needs people in the XB ecosystem to drive subscription sales. They've already shown us that they're willing to subsidize for that purpose when they gave up to three years of Gamepass Ultimate upgrade for $1. As others have mentioned, it is tough to see how subsidizing hardware will do much at this point in the gen, so subsidizing the service was the way to go (one could argue that they're still trying with hardware a bit, with the $149 XB1SAD right now). But, that math changes with the launch of next gen systems. I expect they will throw as much money as necessary at pricing in order to beat Sony on one of the two fronts.