Recently, Asha Sharma said in an interview with the BBC that Project Helix is not just an independent Xbox console, but a complete “device family.” There are no details about this yet, but in its new version Digital Foundry Podcast Discussed what we can expect from Microsoft in terms of next-gen consoles.
According to Digital Foundry, the basis of the “Project Helix Series” will be reference devices released by Microsoft itself. Richard Leadbetter points out the following:
It’s easy to imagine a family of devices. There will be a reference design for the Project Helix system – this is the next generation of consoles, the tenth generation. There will almost certainly be a portable device, most likely created by a partner, as we’ve already seen with Asus.
I’m sure we’ll see RDNA 5-based SOCs tailored for portable devices when they become available. So where can the family go next? I think the answer might be to build on what Microsoft is already doing, which is Xbox Cloud.
The author considered the alternative of releasing a more affordable Xbox version based on the same architecture. According to them, the Project Helix design will potentially allow the use of different graphics wafers.
With the Project Helix chip design (which actually uses separate chips for the CPU and other components as well as the GPU), Microsoft might be able to create a cheaper Xbox by simply replacing the GPU with another variant of the RDNA 5 series.
[…] If a device family does exist, this may mean different configurations, such as different amounts of memory. But there has to be a minimum. You can’t endlessly reduce features just to reduce costs.
However, as Digital Foundry is confident, such a strategy may create additional difficulties for developers.
The problem is that the larger the device family, the more optimization and manual configuration is required. I’m not sure the developers are ready for this.
Let us remind you that Microsoft plans to make the Project Helix development kit available to developers in early 2027, but it is not yet clear what exactly that will be.
