Just a few days after having officially confirmed that the next-generation Xbox is being developed under the codename Project Helix, Microsoft, through its game development social media account, has now posted some teaser images of the development kit for the console. The teaser images came in celebration of the company’s presence at GDC 2026, and you can check them out below.
It is worth noting that, out of the three images posted, two of them bear a striking resemblance to the development kits of past Xbox consoles—namely the Xbox One and the Xbox One X kits. The third image, however, is more cryptic, showing off a cropped image of letters that would appear to form “XDK”, along with some geometric shapes being part of the design. We also don’t quite get to see the color scheme of this hardware, since all of the photos were taken in greyscale.
Microsoft bringing its next-gen development kits to GDC this year should come as no surprise, since new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma noted that the company would be in talks with partners and studios at the event.
“Great start to the morning with Team Xbox, where we talked about our commitment to the return of Xbox including Project Helix, the code name for our next generation console,” she wrote on social media last week. “Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games. Looking forward to chatting about this more with partners and studios at my first GDC next week!”
While concrete details about Project Helix haven’t yet been revealed, rumors have indicated that it will be powered by AMD’s Magnus APU. A recent report has indicated that it will feature 30 percent more compute units than the Xbox Series X, and will get an even larger performance boost thanks to the newer RDNA 5 architecture it runs on. Generally speaking, each compute unit is expected to perform roughly 65 percent more than the ones on the Xbox Series X, and the report indicates that Microsoft is looking at targeting frame rates beyond 120 FPS.
As for pricing, Microsoft has made no secret about the fact that its next-gen console will offer a “premium” experience. Considering the bill of materials as indicated by its rumored components, however, the company will likely charge somewhere between $999 and $1,200, with the option of going as low as $900 if it wants to offer a really competitive price point.
Another report brought up comparisons between Project Helix’s chip, and the one powering Sony’s rumored next-gen console—the PS6—known as AMD Orion. According to the report, the Magnus APU will have a considerably larger footprint, coming in at 408 mm-squared thanks to a combination of its 144 mm-squared SoC (system on a chip) and 264 mm-squared GPU. In contrast, PS6’s Orion is expected to come in at 280 mm-squared.
Microsoft being so eager to show off its next-gen hardware also indicates that the company might be getting ready to officially unveil the console relatively soon. Owing to the ongoing memory shortages, the company was believed to be pushing back its console launch plans to beyond 2027.
