Charla noted that the team is working hard to ensure that developers can make a single build targeting Xbox for their games, and have it work on a variety of hardware, including Project Helix, PC, and even through cloud streaming. “We’re working hard so developers can make one Xbox build in the future and it’ll run on their Project Helix console, on PC and on streaming and cloud surfaces like smart TVs and other devices,” he said.

He also revealed that Microsoft will offer a similar level of support to developers for Project Helix as it does now for Xbox Series X/S and Windows. As for any advice he might have for developers, Charla thinks they should start working with development kits for Xbox and PC sooner rather than later. This, he believes, will put them in a better position for when Project Helix rolls around. While developing for PC might be challenging, thanks in large part to the variety of hardware available these days, Charla noted that having a single target, like Xbox for PC, could then help developers bring it over to consoles as well.

“Someone looking to be ready for next-gen with Xbox should be developing for Xbox console today, developing for Xbox on PC, and supporting Xbox Play Anywhere,” he said. “That’ll put you in pole position for the next generation and ensure your Xbox on PC game runs natively on Project Helix. The exact specifics may differ per developer and game. In a lot of cases if you’re coming from a Steam or stock PC build it may be smarter to start with the Xbox for PC version first and then use that as the basis for the Xbox console version. Of course we’ll have more details about how developers can take advantage of the specific hardware features of Project Helix in the months ahead, but doing this ensures they’ll have a native build on Project Helix.”

Charla also spoke about new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma, and what her leadership has in store for the company. “I think [Sharma’s] leadership is going to be really good,” he said, before going on to discuss the three principles she laid down in her first town hall meeting with the Xbox Team. Generally speaking, he is quite optimistic about the future of Xbox. “We’re in the best time ever to be playing games,” he said.

Project Helix was officially unveiled earlier this month, and while Microsoft has been tight-lipped about its hardware and software features, reports have been coming around indicating that it might have a performance lead over Sony’s rumored PS6, at least on paper.

Rumors have indicated that Sony and Microsoft had previously been aiming for a 2027 launch window for their respective consoles. However, the memory shortage struck, which led to new reports coming out about how the two companies might push their release plans back. One such report, from back in January, came from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson, who noted that there were “ongoing talks at the high levels” in both companies about the launch windows.

Industry analysts have also chimed in with similar thoughts. MST Financial’s senior research analyst David Gibson stated his belief earlier this year that Sony might end up extending the lifecycle of the PS5, and that the PS6 could be “delayed longer than many expected.” Both of these reports cited the lack of stability in RAM prices as being the major factor at play.

A more recent report, courtesy of industry insider KeplerL2, indicated that both Sony and Microsoft are hanging on to their originally-planned Holiday 2027 launch windows. The statement fell in line with a similar claim made by YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead, who spoke about logistical issues playing a key role in Sony sticking to its plans. While both companies have likely been facing issues thanks to memory shortages, a delay to late 2028 or even 2029 is considered unlikely since it would end up costing the company more money to disrupt its plans than it would to simply launch the console and eat any inflated costs.

The YouTuber also cited sources believing that the memory situation will get “significantly better” by the end of 2026, and “a lot better” by the end of 2027. Ultimately, the decision on when to launch the PS6 will likely be made “right before they start manufacturing at TSCM” at the start of 2027.

Both the PS6 and Microsoft’s Project Helix are rumored to run on cutting-edge chips designed by AMD, with the former’s APU being codenamed Orion and the latter’s being Magnus. Project Helix is believed to be more powerful than the PS6 thanks in no small part to its larger die size and higher number of compute units. However, while the difference might be more pronounced on paper, actual real-world performance is expected to be “basically not that meaningful.”

Project Helix is rumored to have 26 percent more compute units than the PS6, giving it a significant edge on paper. For comparison, the Xbox Series X also has more compute units than the PS5 by around 44 percent. Despite this, however, we saw little difference in gameplay performance from either of the consoles during their lifetimes.

“Thrilled to partner with [Xbox] and [Asha Sharma] on Project Helix, a multi-year deep co-engineering partnership driving next-gen performance, breakthrough graphics, and compatibility with your existing Xbox game library,” wrote Huynh on social media.

While exact technical details about FSR Diamond haven’t been revealed yet, Huynh has described it as being “built” for next-gen neural rendering, machine learning-based upscaling, machine learning-based multi-frame generation, and next-gen ray regeneration for ray tracing and path tracing.

While all quite impressive, multi-frame generation will undoubtedly be one of the flagship features of FSR Diamond, since this would be the first time it makes it into FSR. While AMD’s FSR has previously featured frame generation, it has only generated a single frame between two of the game’s frames.

For the sake of comparison, multi frame generation has been one of the core features of Nvidia’s DLSS since Early last year when the company launched DLSS 4. Since then, the feature has seen further improvements with the addition of Dynamic 6X multi frame generation as of earlier this month.

Interestingly, according to industry insider KeplerL2, FSR Diamond is slated to be exclusive to AMD’s RDNA 5 architecture. This means that we likely won’t see the technology make its way on to older AMD PC GPUs.

It is worth noting that AMD has also been working closely with Sony to build next-generation graphics rendering pipelines that we will likely see in the latter’s next-generation console. Huynh, along with PS5 and PS5 Pro lead architect Mark Cerny, had discussed the results of this collaboration back in October.

Among the new features discussed were Neural Arrays, Radiance Cores, and Universal Compression, which would give game developers more tools to enhance the visual fidelity of their titles while still ensuring that the console hardware can keep up. For more details, check out our thoughts on how this new technology points to the PS6.

“The challenge comes in how we implement these systems,” said Cerny. “The neural networks found in technologies like FSR and PSSR are incredibly demanding on the GPU. They’re both computationally intensive and require speedy access to large amounts of memory. The nature of the GPU fights us here.”

In the meantime, vice president of Xbox Jason Ronald had revealed that early versions of the Project Helix development kit will start being shipped out to developers in 2027.

“Project Helix is powered by a custom AMD [system on chip] and co-designed for the next generation of DirectX and FSR to unlock what comes next,” said Ronald during GDC 2026. “It delivers an order of magnitude leap in ray tracing performance and capability, integrates intelligence directly into the graphics and compute pipeline, and drives meaningful gains in efficiency, scale, and visual ambition. The result is more realistic, immersive, and dynamic worlds for players.”

There have also been plenty of recent reports about the hardware powering Project Helix, and how it would compare with the rumored hardware under the hood of the PS6. While the former is believed to be stronger on paper, the difference is ultimately believed to be “basically not that meaningful.”

According to Digital Foundry, the difference between the two next-gen consoles is likely to come down to the fact that Project Helix has around 26 percent more compute units than the PS6. For the sake of comparison, the Xbox Series X has 44 percent more compute units than the PS5, with the latter having faster CUs. They made a note of the fact that the current generation of consoles didn’t really see a meaningful difference when it comes to quality or frame rate across most titles, largely thanks to more modern software features like dynamic resolution and image upscaling through FSR.

Industry insider KeplerL2 took to the NeoGAF forums to add their own thoughts on the matter, noting that the gulf of power between the two consoles will be wider than what we saw between PS5 and Xbox Series X. While the latter had 20 percent higher TFLOPS (trillion floating point operations per second), along with 20 percent more LLC (last level cache) and memory bandwidth paired with 18 percent lower front-end bandwidth, geometry rate and pixel fill rate when compared to the PS5, the Magnus APU powering Project Helix is slated to have around 25 percent higher TFLOPS than the PS6’s Orion APU, along with 33 percent higher front-end bandwidth, geometry rate, and pixel fill rate, as well as 140 percent more LLC and 20 percent more memory bandwidth.

Despite this, even KeplerL2 believes that this won’t amount to too much of a difference when it comes to real-world use and performance. It will come down to Project Helix being capable of higher frame rates than the PS6 in some cases, for example, or being able to handle path tracing where Sony’s system can only do regular raytracing.

“It’s definitely a bigger difference than this gen,” wrote KeplerL2. “XSX has 20% higher TFlops and Texture Fill rate plus 20% more LLC and memory bandwidth but 18% lower Front-End bandwidth, Geometry rate and Pixel Fill rate. For Magnus it’s ~25% higher TFlops/Tex rate, ~33% higher Front-end BW, Geom rate, Pixel rate plus 140% more LLC and 20% more memory bandwidth.”

“That said, I agree that it’s not enough to make a huge difference, like Magnus running something at 60 FPS while the PS6 can only handle 30 FPS, or running Path Tracing in a game where the PS6 can only handle RT.”

The insider went on to note that, while the hardware differences are big on paper, in practice, it will likely come down to Project Helix being able to run games at higher internal resolutions before the image is upscaled through FSR than the PS6. “I mean that the [hardware] difference is not big enough to allow that to happen,” they wrote. “In most cases I expect Magnus to run higher internal res (e.g PS6 1080p upscaled to 4K, Magnus 1440P upscaled to 4K) or using slightly higher quality settings.”

However, the major difference between Project Helix and the PS6 is expected to be in pricing. While Sony will likely stick to its current console pricing strategies to help grow its user base, Microsoft’s console is expected to be much more expensive. Digital Foundry’s Oliver Mackenzie noted that, “Because the new Xbox Magnus die is also over 400mm squared, even though I think it is a dual die design, that is a considerably large die for a console. Whereas PS6 seems to be a die around PS5 Pro size, as it’s a very svelte die that’s monolithic, so that should be cheaper to produce just by its nature as well.” The bill of materials for Project Helix due to its larger die size is expected to be considerably higher.

Attempting to directly check stories under that tag results in a “404 Not Found” error, which means that the company has likely purged all of its stories related to the campaign, along with the tag itself. For those curious enough to actually check out details about the marketing campaign, the only way to access the Xbox Wire article, published back in November 2024, seems to be through Archive Today.

The “This is an Xbox” campaign revolved entirely around establishing Xbox as a multiplatform brand rather than a single console. Under the campaign, the company had released several short clips where it would point to different computers and smartphones, noting that “this is an Xbox” thanks to services like Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming. It is worth noting that the campaign was Bond’s brainchild.

A report from last month, shortly after her resignation from Microsoft was announced, indicated that Bond had come under scrutiny for the campaign. Reception had reportedly been mixed from employees. The multiplatform approach that focused on cloud gaming and mobile allegedly “offended many employees internally,” with some saying that Bond was also difficult to work with. This led to the campaign “failing” and being “questioned multiple times” internally at Microsoft.

While whether or not the perceived failure of the “This is an Xbox” campaign led to Bond’s eventual departure, in a post on LinkedIn, she noted that it was “the right time for me to take my next step, both personally and professionally.” Discussing her tenure at Xbox, Bond wrote about “helping lead” the company “through what would be a critical period of change” following its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2022.

“With that, I’ve decided this is the right time for me to take my next step, both personally and professionally,” she wrote. “We’re living through a transformative technological era that will shape the next generation of our industry, and I’m energized by what’s ahead.”

As for new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma, Bond regarded her quite highly, writing about having spent time with her in the midst of the transition in Xbox leadership.

In the meantime, Sharma reportedly brought in Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella into an internal Q&A recently to discuss the company’s overall vision for gaming. During the Q&A, Nadella expressed happiness over being present, and called gaming one of the “core identities” of Microsoft. He also spoke about his conversations with Spencer, and how Microsoft wants to continue being a major presence in the gaming industry. “We have to be the best-in-class at it,” he said.

Microsoft recently reaffirmed its commitment to staying in the gaming industry by confirming that it will be sending out alpha units for Project Helix’s development kits to developers next year.

Interestingly, KeplerL2’s claims of a 2027 release window fall in line with a previous report by YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead, who claimed earlier this month that Sony is unlikely to push back its console launch plans. He noted that these kinds of delays tend to cost companies more than just simply releasing the hardware even if they have to take a hit on pricing because of RAM shortages.

In his report, he also noted that, according to sources familiar with the issue, the global memory situation is expected to get “significantly better” by the end of 2026, and “a lot better” by the end of next year.

During the ongoing Game Developers Conference, Xbox vice president Jason Ronald confirmed that alpha test kits for Project Helix’s development kits will be shipped to developers next year. He also revealed some more details about the kind of hardware that the new console will run on.

“Project Helix is powered by a custom AMD [system on chip] and co-designed for the next generation of DirectX and FSR to unlock what comes next,” he said. “It delivers an order of magnitude leap in ray tracing performance and capability, integrates intelligence directly into the graphics and compute pipeline, and drives meaningful gains in efficiency, scale, and visual ambition. The result is more realistic, immersive, and dynamic worlds for players.”

Reports have indicated that the Magnus APU powering Project Helix will have 30 percent more compute units than the Xbox Series X. These compute units are also slated to be around 65 percent faster. Combined with the fact that the hardware is based on AMD’s newer RDNA 5 architecture, the console is likely to be quite a bit more efficient and powerful than its predecessor. As for how much it will cost, Microsoft is yet to reveal any concrete details for now. However, the bill of materials is likely quite high, and the company is expected to sell the next-gen console for between $999 and $1,200.

As for the PS6, the console is rumored to be powered by AMD’s Orion chip, which comes in at 280 mm-squared in area and is being fabricated on TSMC’s 3 nm process. The GPU is expected to run on 54 RDNA 5 compute units, and the CPU will feature 8 Zen 6c cores, paired with two Zen 6 low-power cores dedicated to handling the console’s operating system. This will reportedly result in an overall 20 percent boost in the CPU power available for running games in the next-gen console.

For more, check out our thoughts on why the PS6’s rumored 30 GB of GDDR7 memory has the potential to be a game-changer.

Alpha test kits of the console are going to be shipped to developers sometime next year, with Jason Ronald, the new vice president of Xbox, dropping the news at GDC 2026, alongside a little bit more about what to expect from the new console. While that’s good news, it does demonstrate that it’s going to be a while before we get to see the new Xbox in action, although the wait might just be worth it.

“Project Helix is powered by a custom AMD [system on chip] and co-designed for the next generation of DirectX and FSR to unlock what comes next…It delivers an order of magnitude leap in ray tracing performance and capability, integrates intelligence directly into the graphics and compute pipeline, and drives meaningful gains in efficiency, scale, and visual ambition. The result is more realistic, immersive, and dynamic worlds for players.”

Aside from what’s looking like a major leap forward for the Xbox, gaming on your PCs is about to get a lot easier in April this year, with the ROG Ally X’s Xbox mode heading to Windows 11. If that’s something you didn’t know existed, it brings the Xbox UI to your PCs, complete with controller support. It’s aimed at making it simple to “switch between productivity and play”, and could be a great addition if you’re already in the Xbox ecosystem, and perhaps valuable even outside of it.

Things might just be looking up for a console that’s been a part of gaming history, and we’re looking forward to the Xbox getting out of its slump and coming back stronger than ever.

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.

In performance terms, while Magnus will only have roughly 30 percent more compute units than its predecessor, enhancements brought in thanks to the newer RDNA 5 architecture account for a major boost. The report notes that each compute unit will be roughly 65 percent faster than those present in the Xbox Series X. Thanks to this, Moore’s Law is Dead also expects Microsoft to target frame rates beyond 120 FPS.

When it comes to pricing, Microsoft hasn’t been shy in the past about calling its next-generation hardware release a “premium” one. Considering the bill of materials for the Magnus APU, and the fact that AMD is targeting a $550 price tag for its next-gen graphics card based on similar technology, Microsoft could charge around $900 for the console if it were to sell it at cost. If the company actually wanted profits, however, expect the console to cost between $999 and $1200.

In the same video, the YouTuber had also spoken about the PS6. Comparing the two next-generation consoles, his report indicated that the Orion APU will be significantly smaller than Magnus, coming in at 280 mm-squared, compared to Magnus taking up 408 mm-squared. The latter’s larger footprint will also result in a higher bill of materials when compared to Orion, however.

The CPU of the Magnus APU is also expected to be more powerful than what we will see in the PS6, thanks to its inclusion of full Zen 6 cores rather than the competitor’s use of Zen 6c. Despite this, however, the practical power difference isn’t expected to be too large, since Microsoft is reportedly expecting quite a bit of software overhead due to Project Helix’s rumored hybrid nature of being halfway between a console and a gaming PC.

The GPU powering Magnus will have 68 RDNA 5 compute units, equipped with 4 shader engines, each of which has two shader arrays. The GPU will also have access to at least 24 MB of L2 cache. To take advantage of this, the APU as a whole will be equipped with a 192-bit memory bus with the possibility of up to 48 GB of GDDR7 RAM. There will also be a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of 110 TOPS (trillion operations per second) when running at 6 watts, and 46 TOPS when running at 1.2 watts.

Both Microsoft and Sony are reportedly also still assessing whether or not they want to delay their respective next-generation consoles. According to Moore’s Law is Dead, it tends to be more expensive for companies to change their plans, and rumors are indicating that the memory shortage situation will improve by the end of next year.

Another difference is how the compute units between Magnus and Orion have been set up. PS6 will seemingly run on 54 RDNA 5 compute units for its graphics, and 8 Zen 6c cores paired with 2 Zen 6 low-power cores dedicated to handling the operating system. This was, according to Moore’s Law is Dead, reportedly gives a 20 percent boost in CPU power available for running games, when compared to the PS5’s CPU which didn’t have dedicated cores for the OS. Project Helix’s Magnus, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have low-power cores. Rather, its CPU consists of up to 3 Zen 6 cores paired with 8 Zen 6c cores, while its GPU will have 68 RDNA 5 compute units.

Ultimately, the CPU powering Project Helix is noted as being more powerful thanks to its inclusion of Zen 6 cores, compared to the PS6’s Zen 6c cores. However, the difference isn’t expected to be too large between the two consoles when it comes to overall performance.

As for the GPU, Sony is reportedly targeting clock speeds of 3 GHz, which will result in performance of around 40 TFLOPS (trillion floating point operations per second). It is theorized to be capable of triple the rasterization performance of PS5, and up to 12 times the ray tracing performance. The Magnus chip powering Project Helix, however, is expected to be around 25 percent faster than the PS6 on paper. However, how this will play out in practice remains to be seen.

As for when these consoles might actually come out, Moore’s Law is Dead expressed a belief that Sony is unlikely to actually delay the PS6. He noted that, while there are logistical issues that might drive up the cost right now owing to memory shortages and skyrocketing RAM prices, the company has dealt with similar issues just a few years ago, when the pandemic-induced lockdown caused similar problems with supply chains. To that end, he expects Sony to stick with its planned 2027 launch window, or maybe even push the console back to early 2028. However, a delay to 2029 is noted as being unlikely since it would cost the company more to disrupt its plans than it would to eat the inflated costs and launch the console as previously planned.

According to sources familiar with these issues, the memory situation is expected to get “significantly better” by the end of the current year, and will be “a lot better” by the end of next year. The judgment call on the release of the PS6 will likely be made at the start of 2027, “right before they start manufacturing at TSMC.”