GoKawiilis a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
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According to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, Project Helix, which she announced in March as a codename for Microsoft’s “next generation console” — phrasing that seemingly implied a singular device — will actually be a “family” of devices.”
“We’ve been hard at work on a great next generation and a great family of devices for Helix, and we’ll share more soon,” Sharma told BBC News. She shared the answer after being asked if Helix will be a discless console. She didn’t answer that, but this week Microsoft announced a program for digitizing your physical games.
In 2025, Microsoft and AMD announced a “strategic multi-year partnership” to work together on “a portfolio of devices,” including Microsoft’s next-generation console, so it seems likely the two companies are also partnering on this family of Helix devices in some way. It’s been rumored that third parties will be able to sell Project Helix devices of their own — a rumor that Xbox’s VP of next generation, Jason Ronald, didn’t exactly deny when he wrote that: “Project Helix will be available as a 1st party Xbox console.”
It’s unclear when Project Helix, which will be able to play PC games, might actually launch. In February, shortly before Sharma’s surprise appointment to the top job at Xbox, AMD hinted that it would be ready to support a launch of Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox in 2027, and at a conference in March, Ronald said that Helix wouldn’t reach alpha until 2027.