Some of the smaller details in the article don't make sense to me, although I can agree with the overall conclusions. I sort of said the same thing after their earnings call based on the comments from the CFO - things appear to be trending more expensive and $399 isn't a slam dunk. They would like to wait until Xbox announces price to make the call. I agree with this sentiment.
The actual dollars don't make sense to me because a $450 launch BOM wouldn't be a super hard pill to swallow to launch at $399 assuming they have line-of-sight for that to come down. I think it would need to be much higher for them to waiver like this.
Second, I don't recall cooling solutions being that cheap - even single components within the system. Still it seems hard to believe that cooling (even an exotic solution) would be something that drives up the price. I also don't believe they couldn't design around this issue. It's all memory, silicon yields, storage and spinning media. Those are the big areas. So a significant increase in memory pricing absolutely could be a driver.
My guess is that costs have gone up enough to put them in a weird spot. Depending on what you want to believe about performance - but if they are actually in a 9-10 vs. 12 situation, being at the same price isn't super fun. And if costs have gone up more than they expect, it could be very hard to get to a $100 delta.
That's my take anyway. I don't think it's a revelatory article, more just adding some texture to things that seem to be known.