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Xbox Project Helix will soon be a reality. In a world where "everything is an Xbox" there was an air of uncertainty about whether we'd ever see a mainline follow-up to the Xbox Series X and S, but Jason Ronald, Vice President of Next Generation Xbox gave a keynote address at GDC 2026 and shared that the team is "deep in development" for the next-gen console.
There's still a lot we don't know about Project Helix, including its true name, when it will hit shelves for players, and whether it'll share the 'Xbox' moniker like all the previous consoles before it. Microsoft is hosting its first-ever Xbox Game Dev Update showcase on May 7, 2026, where it plans to give a closer and more formal look at Project Helix and "what it represents for the future of Xbox." So at least it won't be long until we get to sink our teeth into more juicy details on the console-PC hybrid machine.
What is Xbox Project Helix?
Xbox Project Helix is the codename for Microsoft's next-gen console that will serve as a sequel to the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
Project Helix will mark the fifth generation Xbox console, which started with the OG Xbox, 360, One, and Series X/S. Technically speaking, the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is part of that lineup, but serves as the company's first attempt at PC hardware. Just like the gaming handheld, a post to X (Twitter) on March 5, 2026 by new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, confirms that the "next generation console" will be able to play both Xbox and PC games. During the Xbox Developer Summit keynote address held on March 11 at the 2026 Game Developer Conference, it was confirmed by Jason Ronald, Vice President of Next Generation Xbox, that the platform will also be powered by a custom AMD SoC, a result of the ongoing partnership between Xbox and AMD.
Ongoing RAM shortages could mean an Xbox Project Helix release date delay
It's still a bit too early to decipher any Project Helix release date and pricing details. During the same Xbox Developer Summit keynote speech I mentioned earlier, it was confirmed that dev kits were being shipped out to developers at the beginning of 2027. With that in mind, you can expect to wait until at least next year before you can get your hands on the next-gen console.
That said, with the RAM supply crisis ongoing, it will likely be a while before Xbox Project Helix console comes to fruition. Hardware manufacturers are continuing to feel the heat as the AI data centers are hoarding up memory and storage, and it's suspected that the PS6 could be delayed as a result. It wouldn't be a surprise if Team Xbox were dealing with a similar situation with the Xbox Project Helix.
Bloomberg cites anonymous sources in a report on February 15, 2026, that claim Sony is delaying its next-gen PS6 console to 2028 or 2029. While Microsoft was left out of this report, the Xbox Series X/S consoles are equipped with 16GB GDDR6 VRAM.
In order to "lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games" as Sharma shares in her original tweet, it would need to have at least 16GB of GDDR5 RAM or above, and that may be difficult to source amongst the dwindling amounts of storage available today. Especially as GDDR5 RAM just happens to be the exact type of RAM that is currently being hoarded by these AI data centers.
Don't expect the Xbox Project Helix price to be less than current-gen consoles
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma shared with GameFile on April 24, 2026, that RAM shortages are going to have an impact on the availability and pricing of Project Helix. The new head of Xbox shared that her team is "investing in [the Gen 9 console] as a first-class experience again" which sounds as though it's not going to come cheap.
This shouldn't be all too surprising. The current generation of consoles has seen multiple price hikes during its six-year lifespan, with the Xbox Series X rising from $599.99 to $649.99 during October 2005, and the Xbox Series X (1TB) rising from $429.99 to $449.99. Typically, consoles get cheaper over time, yet Microsoft chose to raise its prices in the US as reported on the official Xbox website due to "changes in the macroeconomic environment." In layman's terms, as a response to the then tariff troubles.
That, combined with the ongoing RAM supply issues, is inevitably going to have a knock-on effect on pricing. Take the Steam Machine, Valve's upcoming mini PC, which is expected to launch later this year. Despite the fact Valve has shared it's expected to come "early" this year, there's still no pricing information available for the upcoming pixel-pusher. Our team's own Phil Hayton suspects that the RAM shortages and the ongoing complexities of the US tariffs will result in it costing more than current-gen consoles, and that's likely to be true where the Xbox Project Helix is concerned, too.
AMD will have a hand in Xbox Project Helix specs and performance
During the Xbox Developer Summit keynote address at the 2026 Game Developer Conference, it was confirmed that the Project Helix project was going to be powered "by a custom AMD SoC and co-designed for the next generation of DirectX and FSR."
The AMD partnership isn't entirely surprising, as during a YouTube video posted on June 17, 2025, Xbox announced that it has "established a strategic, multi-year agreement" with GPU and PC part manufacturer AMD in an effort to "co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices, including our next-generation Xbox consoles." At the time, Project Helix wasn't known to the general public, but this was the first spark that ignited rumours that Team Xbox could be utilizing AMD's tech to engineer the next-generational console.
The original GDC talk held by was attended by a GamesRadar+ team member, where brief outlines of the console's proposed specs were presented as follows:
- Plays your Xbox console & PC games
- 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
- DirectStorage + Zstd
As the GamesRadar+'s own Dustin Bailey explains, the inclusion of machine learning upscaling (or AI upscaling as it's also known) is pretty much expected for any new piece of gaming hardware, particularly one that's expected to play both Xbox and PC games. However, Vice President of Next Generation Jason Ronald states in the Xbox Wire summary of the talk that it will "order of magnitude leap in ray tracing performance and capability" with the upcoming console.
How that transpires in practice, we won't know until a more detailed wealth of specs is revealed. It is expected at least that Project Helix will likely have FRS Diamond at its helm, AMD's new, in-development FidelityFX Super Resolution tech. AMD's Senior Vice President and GM Jack Huynh shared on X (Twitter) on March 11, 2026, that he was "thrilled to partner with" Xbox and CEO Asha Sharma on Project Helix, while unveiling FSR Diamond, which is "designed to be natively optimized for Project Helix and deeply integrated into the GDK." Huynh elaborated in the same X (Twitter) post that FSR Diamond will incorporate next-gen neural rendering, next-gen ML-based upscaling, multi-frame generation, and next-gen Ray Regeneration for RT & Path Tracing.
AMD being at the helm spells good news for performance and what the next-gen Xbox could hope to achieve. AMD is behind some of the best graphics cards and has been producing chips and parts for Xbox consoles way back during the days of the Xbox 360. Yet, we'll have to wait a bit longer until we can see what this Xbox and AMD partnership is truly capable of for the next-gen platform.
Backwards compatibility for Xbox Project Helix games is looking positive
During the Xbox + AMD partnership reveal video, Xbox President Sarah Bond stated that it's stragetic agreement was "all about building you a gaming platform that's always with you, so you can play the games you want across the devices anywhere you want" which alludes to the fact that you'll be able to access your existing digital Xbox game library on the upcoming console, yet nothing has been confirmed so far.
Bond continued to refer to an Xbox experience that's "not locked to a single store or tied to one device" though how exactly this would be implemented for any next-gen console wasn't elaborated, especially whether or not it'll have a disc drive to also accommodate physical Xbox Series X games. In the past, backwards compatibility has been a big deal for Xbox, with digital original Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One games all playable on the current-gen system. Hopefully, this will remain the case with Project Helix, so players will only need one system to play their Xbox game libraries, past and present.
Our guides to the best Xbox Series X controllers, the best Xbox Series X headsets, and the best Xbox Series X hard drives are full of high-quality accessories if you're happy getting the most out of the current generation of hardware.
