A new Xbox console could cost $1,800. That’s the high end of what Microsoft has “internally been projected” for its 2028 Project Helix console, according to a new Fortune profile of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. The low end is $1,200.
Fortune said the console is aimed at a 2028 holiday season release. It’s one half of a two-device plan. The other half is “a next-generation handheld device” that Microsoft reportedly wants out by the end of next year.
Microsoft hasn’t said much about Project Helix since it announced the hardware in March as a device that will “play your Xbox and PC games.” So this is the first real look at the money side, and the numbers are steep.
The price could still come down
The projection isn’t a final sticker price. Fortune said the cost to consumers could drop if “Microsoft decides to subsidize the cost,” which console makers have done plenty of times before.
Even so, a $1,200 starting price would be historically high for a game console, and that holds after you adjust for inflation. But it also fits where hardware prices have been heading. Moore’s Law has slowed, AI-driven demand is causing component shortages and high-end gaming hardware costs more than it used to.
The current shelf already shows it. The Steam Machine broke the $1,000 starting price this year. The PlayStation 5 Pro, running 2-year-old technology, now goes for $900. And the 6-year-old Xbox Series X starts at $750. Next to those, $1,200 for a 2028 machine looks less like a wild outlier and more like the next step up.
A fight over Windows
The handheld has its own drama. Fortune reported internal clashes at Microsoft over whether the Helix handheld should run a “trimmed-down version of Windows Home,” similar to last year’s ROG Xbox Ally, or a custom operating system that the Xbox group builds and controls.
Citing “people briefed on the clash,” Fortune said one high-level executive threatened to cancel the handheld entirely if they were forced to use Windows. That threat apparently worked. The Xbox team is “now largely controlling the direction of the operating system for the project,” Fortune wrote, though Sharma said the two groups are still working closely together.
Microsoft has also reportedly pushed the hardware team to move up Project Helix timelines “by at least several months,” partly by using AI tools where it can.
Game Pass may get chopped into pieces
The subscription is due for a shake-up too. Fortune cited “people familiar with the strategy” in reporting that Xbox Game Pass will soon move to a heavily tiered “a la carte” setup. Subscribers would pick “add-ons for console-only games, cloud gaming, and multiplayer.”
That’s a departure from how Game Pass works now. Every current plan bundles in some amount of cloud gaming, console exclusives and console multiplayer, even for people who never touch them. If you’ve been paying for cloud streaming you don’t use, this version might suit you better.
Is Xbox being prepped for a sale?
The profile also takes on a worry from “several current and former staff members”: that Sharma was installed to make painful cuts ahead of selling off a spun-out Xbox group.
Microsoft executive Judson Althoff rejected that reading. “We would not have put [Sharma] on a business we intend to sell. There’s going to be a ton of speculation about all this. Time will tell,” Althoff said.
