Problem is Nadella has stated Microsoft is no longer interested in chasing marketshare with their phone business and instead will be moving away "from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business", in that scenario seems they would be less willing to take a loss on however many handsets they do manage to sell.
For them to say they are not interested in chasing Market share, is 100% BS. If they are not chasing market share why even make Windows Phone ? The market is clearly showing that iOS and Android are outselling Windows Phone every day. So, they invest BILLIONS in Nokia but, they have no interest in Market share ? Really ? Are people that clueless to believe that for one second ?
It comes down to basic math, Microsoft owns the Windows Phone store, when you sell an app, Microsoft makes a profit (Just like Apple does and Google does)., if your not selling phones (aka building market share), the apps will sell less and in turn make less money. Microsoft is a business above anything else, if it's not making them ANY MONEY and it keeps LOSING MONEY, for them, it would be a multi billion dollar tax write off. We are not talking a little mom and pop shop, we are talking a global company who is involved in business in every country in the world, that makes many billions of dollars a year. They make large investments like this all the time (maybe 2 times a year) and if they don't turn a profit, or they use their tech for something of their own, they sell or close them down.
Microsoft has been pushing low end phones for a few years now, why do that ? Think about it, How to make market share is to flood the market with lower price point phones, more people with less income will jump at a full featured smartphone with at this price point, and there are a lot of "well off" people who just want a phone, that does "smartphone" features but, with a low cost because they don't really care about them that much. Again, business 101 would see what they are trying to do with this.
Now that they captured (or competing very well) in the low end market, now it's time to make 2 super high end phones. These HAVE to be true flagships, to go HEAD TO HEAD to the iOS and Android offerings in this segment. Anything less would be a disappointment for anyone who is buying phones at this level. Don't worry with the feature set that they are claiming, it should be able to go HEAD TO HEAD with them.
I am someone who watches this market very well, they will sell these phones for a loss but, only to hit a price point. I see the 2 models being priced about $50-75 less than the iPhone models (6 and 6+) and same in the flagship Android devices in the FULL retail price area. If the iPhone 6 is $199 (on contract) and the 6+ is $299, then you will see the 950 for around $130-150 and the LX to be in the $200-250 range.
All the talk about this is interesting, think your getting a 950xl for $300 at full retail, that is not going to happen, they will be VERY aggressively priced but, directly priced under the big competitors that they are going head to head with.
No matter what everyone thinks, Microsoft as a company is not dumb, they have 100's of people studying the marketplace, they know EXACTLY where these need to be priced at to make them FIT in the marketplace. Too much and they wont sell, to little and they get the thought of it being a lower end cheap phone.
So, all in all, expect these phones to be full retail priced about $50-75 less than iOS, or Android flagships. I would be shocked if it was less by much and if it's more, they could be shooting themselves in the foot.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out...