As Xbox has continued to stumble in recent years, the future of the console has been in question. Most recently thanks to the “This is an Xbox” campaign, which tried to paint just about every piece of consumer electronics with a screen as a potential Xbox, despite there being two actual, dedicated Xbox consoles that we imagine Microsoft would be interested in selling. Whether or not Microsoft would even make a successor to the Xbox Series consoles was in doubt until newly-anointed Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma confirmed via X that the system is indeed in development, as well as offering up its code name–Project Helix. She also confirmed that it will play both Xbox and PC games and “will lead in performance.” Even with this announcement, though, the future of Microsoft hardware is still in doubt.
In this post, we’re rounding up everything we know about the next Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, and what that console might look like. Keep checking back for more as we update this post as new information comes to light the closer we get to an eventual release date–sooner rather than later, we hope.
Project Helix Release Date Speculation
Microsoft hasn’t revealed an expected price range or release date for Project Helix, but we can make some guesses given the current market situation and some things Microsoft higher-ups have said. We’re right in the middle of a huge shortage of RAM and SSD storage, and memory prices have doubled and worse across the market. This will affect both when Microsoft can release the console and what price point they can release at.
AMD CEO Lisa Su hinted that Microsoft could release the console as soon as 2027. This was furthered by the news during the Xbox GDC presentation in March 2026 that developer units would be shipped that year. However, other hardware makers are already shifting plans due to the RAM and SSD shortage. Valve recently said in its 2025 Year in Review that the company “hopes” to release the Steam Machine in 2026, only to roll that statement back and confirm that 2026 is a definite date. That’s still a big step back from the “early 2026” time frame the company spoke about previously. Sony, too, has reportedly considered pushing the PlayStation 6 back to 2028 due to this ongoing shortage.
Potential Pricing For Project Helix
Keep thinking about that RAM shortage, because it’s going to affect the price of console RAM, storage, and GPU VRAM. Consoles have hovered around the $400-$600 price range since the days of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but things are a-changin’. The Xbox Series consoles launched at $299 for the Series S and $499 for the Series X. The Xbox Series S and X now go for $400 and $650 respectively. So we can say at the very least that we don’t expect the console to be any less than $650.
On top of that, recently-departed Xbox CEO Sarah Bond described the system as “very premium, very high-end” in an interview from late 2025. Not once in the history of commerce have those words translated to “very affordable.” Industry analyst Dr. Serkan Toto said we shouldn’t expect the system to sell for any less than $900. Industry leaker Moore’s Law is Dead is putting the price at between $1000 and $1200. The revealed hardware specs for the Steam Machine suggest it will likely be similarly priced, so you’ll want to start saving that money up now. For, just, so many reasons.
Possible Specs
Microsoft hasn’t offered up anything specific regarding the internal specs for Project Helix. Sarah Bond said in 2024 that Xbox was targeting “the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a console generation,” and current CEO Sharma said in her official Project Helix statement that the system will “lead in performance.” Those are both really vague statements. Microsoft has said and reiterated that they’ll be partnering with AMD once again, to create custom chips for Project Helix. We expect they’ll use the same base as the PlayStation 6–AMD’s Zen 6 CPU and RDNA 6 graphics. Moore’s Law is Dead says that Project Helix will have a larger CPU die than the PlayStation 6, which suggesting it could be significantly more powerful than the PlayStation 6. They don’t want to be outclassed by PlayStation again.
Microsoft revealed the following information about Project Helix at the 2026 Game Developers Conference:
Powered By Custom AMD SOC
- Codesigned for Next Generation of DirectX
- Next Gen Raytracing Performance & Capabilities
- GPU Directed Work Graph Execution
AMD FSR Next + Project Helix
- Built for Next Generation of Neural Rendering
- Next Generation ML Upscaling
- New ML Multi Frame Generation
- Next Gen Ray Regeneration for RT and Path Tracing
Deep Texture Compression
- Neural Texture Compression
- Direct Storage + Zstd
None of this counts as a hard specification, but it puts some clear expectations on the system’s expected performance, especially around now-commonplace features like upscaling.
A Living Room PC
Xbox has struggled to differentiate itself from PlayStation in recent years, especially as they release even core franchises like Halo and Gears of War on Sony’s console. The big stand-out feature of Project Helix is that it will play PC games, putting it more directly in competition with Valve’s Steam Machine than with the PlayStation 6. The system will be more PC-like, but with a console front-end called Xbox Mode (until recently Xbox called this, the Full Screen Experience). In addition to backwards compatibility with virtually all of your Xbox games, you can expect to be able to install other storefronts like Steam, Epic Games Store, and others. If it works as Microsoft hopes, it would give owners access to the largest library of games on any console ever.
