The next Xbox could cost $1,800. Microsoft’s own projections put Project Helix somewhere between $1,200 and $1,800, according to a Fortune profile of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. That’s more than any console has ever cost, and it changes how you should think about everything else on this list.
There’s one escape hatch. The report notes that Microsoft could choose to subsidize the console and bring the price down. Until it does, the number on the table is four figures, and it isn’t a small four figures.
Fortune also gives the firmest release window yet: Microsoft plans to have the new console out in time for the 2028 holiday season. And the in-house Xbox handheld that everybody had written off may be alive after all, with a “next-generation handheld device” planned for holiday 2027.
Why it costs so much
Two things are pushing the price up. One is the global shortage of computer memory, which is making all kinds of devices more expensive. The other is Microsoft’s goal of building a high-performance console that can compete with gaming PCs.
None of this should come as a total shock. Former Xbox executive Sarah Bond said the next Xbox would be a “very premium, very high end” device, and you don’t need a decoder ring to read that as “very expensive.” Microsoft also recently put a $1,000 price tag on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X handheld.
The size of the jump is the surprise. Gaming tech YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead had estimated a likely range of $1,000 to $1,200. Microsoft’s reported projection starts where that guess topped out.
The 2028 date looks like a delay
Early in 2026, reporting and comments from chip supplier AMD pointed to a late 2027 launch. That would have matched the industry-standard seven-year lifespan for the Xbox Series consoles, which launched in late 2020.
Holiday 2028 means the date slipped. That’s easy to explain. Sony is reportedly pushing PlayStation 6 back to 2028 or even 2029 because of the RAM crisis, as tech giants building AI datacenters buy up the world’s supply of computer memory and cause chip shortages and price spikes across computing hardware.
In March 2026, Microsoft said it would release “alpha” Project Helix hardware to developers in 2027.
It’s basically a Windows PC that sits under your TV
Microsoft has confirmed that Project Helix will play “your Xbox and PC games.” Reporting from multiple sources, plus public comments from Bond, strongly suggests the next Xbox runs on Windows. One report described the Xbox Ally handheld as “essentially an early version of what the next Xbox is going to be like.” The Ally’s Xbox Full Screen Experience gives Windows a console-style interface built for controllers and TV screens.
The good part is the openness. Bond has hinted that Helix will run other stores and launchers, Steam and Battle.net among them, which gives Xbox players access to a library of games so big it’s hard to picture.
The bad part is Windows itself, which isn’t an elegant or efficient platform for gaming. Going by the mixed results on the Xbox Ally, the Full Screen Experience needs a lot of work before it’s as reliable and quick as other console interfaces.
Your old Xbox games are coming with you
Windows gaming devices like the Xbox Ally can’t play Xbox console games right now. Microsoft has promised Helix will anyway. When the company announced its partnership with AMD on the new machine, Bond said it would offer “compatibility with your existing library of Xbox games.”
How Microsoft’s engineers pull that off is still unclear. They don’t have a choice, though. Starting with Xbox One, Xbox led a push on backward compatibility that forced Sony and Nintendo to follow and taught players to expect their libraries to carry forward. Going back on that isn’t an option.
What you’ll play on it
It’s too early to name next-gen Xbox games with any confidence, especially with the console’s timing already slipping.
The library will look unlike any console’s before it, though. At that price, Helix may not get any exclusives at all, with the Xbox Series X staying around as the entry-level Xbox. In their place you get a huge back catalog of PC games, old and new. If a game plays well with a controller, you should be able to load it.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is probably the biggest Microsoft-published game likely to launch on Helix. A proper new Halo from the series’ new caretakers, Activision, would pair well with a new console. On the third-party side, Larian’s new Divinity looks like a likely next-gen game, and The Witcher 4 could end up next-gen or cross-gen.
The controller probably won’t change much
Don’t expect a radical new pad. The Xbox Series controller is itself a subtle refinement of the Xbox One design, and Microsoft’s layout is the closest thing console and PC gaming have to a standard.
Recent reports say Microsoft has a few controller prototypes in development, including a third-generation Elite controller. Between them, they have haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, an LED status bar and a direct cloud connection. Microsoft may be trying to catch up with the features of Sony’s PS5 DualSense.
Microsoft wants to win on raw power
Microsoft hasn’t announced specs. The only official detail is that it’s working with AMD again, same as Sony. Both console makers have used similar AMD architectures for the last two generations, which has made life much easier for third-party developers.
Like PS6, Project Helix is reportedly built on AMD’s upcoming Zen 6 processor and RDNA 5 graphics. Also like PS6, the target is 4K at 120 frames per second. (A target is all that is. Plenty of games won’t hit it.)
The rumors say Microsoft wants to outgun Sony by a wide margin this time. Moore’s Law is Dead said the final silicon has a bigger die than PS6’s, looks more like a PC design than a console one, and will be more powerful and more expensive than Sony’s machine. That lines up with what Bond said in 2024, when she said the Xbox team was targeting “the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation.”
More power than PS6 at a higher price is a risky play, and nobody in the console business has tried it in a long time.
How Xbox got here
The last six years explain why Microsoft is making that bet. The $67.9 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition sent Xbox’s gaming ambitions sky-high. Meanwhile, the Series X and Series S, arguably the best hardware Xbox has made, sold poorly. They trailed the unpopular Xbox One, never mind PS5 and the Nintendo Switch.
What followed was chaos: a leadership change, mass layoffs and studios closed or sold off. First-party console exclusivity seemed to be abandoned, then came partly back. Game Pass keeps changing its bundles and prices, with more changes on the way. Microsoft finally fixed the first-party drought that hurt the Xbox One era and the early Series years, and now it doesn’t have a good place to put all those games.
Plenty of people have predicted the end of Xbox consoles. Microsoft went ahead and announced the next one anyway.
The handheld is back on
Former CEO Phil Spencer talked openly about an Xbox-made handheld. After Xbox teamed up with Asus on the ROG Xbox Ally handheld gaming PCs, most people assumed the idea had been shelved. Fortune’s reporting says otherwise. A handheld is planned for as early as holiday 2027, and the Windows and Xbox teams have reportedly fought over how its operating system should be built.
Sharma has apparently used the phrase “family of devices” when talking about Helix. Beyond that, nobody knows much about the handheld. It’s a fair bet that, unlike the Xbox Ally, it will run Xbox console games. Whether it also runs PC games the way Helix will is still an open question.
