Tech reporter Moore’s Law Is Dead (thanks VGC) has been ahead of most people when it comes to reporting on the next Xbox—currently known as Project Helix—so likely shouldn’t be ignored when claiming that its price could be somewhere between $999 and $1200. Which would be a nonsensical price for a console, but perhaps would affirm the truism: An Xbox that plays PC games is a just a PC.
New Xbox boss Asha Sharma recently confirmed the Project Helix codename for the next Xbox, adding that it will “lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games.” Which immediately raised huge questions about how that could actually be an Xbox console in any meaningful sense, rather than just yet another rebranding of a PC that runs an Xbox-like UI. Now, if Moore’s Law Is Dead is correct, it’ll have a PC-like price to match.
“Hybrid console” is the extremely silly name being given to a device that’s a PC wearing the loosely-fitting peeled off face of a console, but we should probably get used to it. More concerning is that this is potentially an attempt to put up walls around the comparative freedom of a PC, where upgrading the insides such as RAM, the GPU, and so on could be deeply restricted by warranty and weird screws.
The rationale for the prices is Moore’s Law’s understanding of the architecture involved and his belief that, at cost, such a machine would cost $900. Thus, to make the slimmest profit on the Helix, Microsoft would want to charge $1000 at the very least, while keeping the price at least somewhat fathomable to a Call of Duty-playing audience. Of course, Microsoft is rumored to have never made a single penny in profit on Xbox hardware, rather making its money through game sales and Game Pass subscriptions, so who knows.
If you want to see all the extraordinarily techy specifics on how powerful a machine Microsoft is rumored to be putting together, jump to around 15 minutes in the video above. You’ll also see Tom’s argument for why he believes this’ll easily out-perform the PS6. In the meantime, remember this is all speculation.
