These include DOOM 64, Psychonauts, Retro Classics, DOOM Eternal, Dishonored 2, Fable Anniversary, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Gears 5, Halo 5: Guardians, Halo Wars 2, Hellblade, Ori and the Blind Forest, State of Decay 2, and The Elder Scrolls Online. The lack of any third-party titles indicates that Triton could be a much more focused Game Pass tier aimed at those who only want access to Microsoft’s first-party offerings.

It is worth noting that Microsoft has yet to make any official announcement of this tier. However, a recent report that new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma wants to make Game Pass “more enticing to a broader range of customers,” lends some credence to it being in the works, especially if the company wants to “offer lower-priced tiers.” The report also indicated that Sharma had been communicating with Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters about a potential partnership that would bundle the two companies’ subscriptions together.

“You would have to do it in a way that works for the consumer and works for both companies, and frankly, I think Microsoft’s still trying to figure out how to make the Game Pass bundle work for Microsoft,” said Peters. “But what I like about Asha’s thinking is, it’s all about, ‘How do we do more?’ And it’s already been exciting to watch.”

Microsoft had first introduced its tiered subscriptions for Game Pass back in October 2025, with Game Pass Ultimate being the most expensive tier at $30 per month. The slightly cheaper Premium tier is now $15, while Game Pass Essential costs $10.

At the time, the decision to raise the prices of Game Pass subscriptions was criticized by many, including Laura Fryer, one of the original co-founders of Microsoft Game Studios. She called the price hikes “greed over gaming”.

“I’m not sure that their leadership understands what makes Xbox great,” she said. “I’m not sure that they’re listening to their fans. They keep doubling down on decisions that make it clear that they’ve been in a bubble, and all this feedback doesn’t seem to reach them any more.”

“Xbox didn’t reinvent [itself] by replacing the old engine with a better one,” she continued further in her video. “They just abandoned what they had and started chasing what they didn’t understand…With this last increase to Game Pass, Xbox threw away one of their last advantages: they were the best deal in gaming. These price hikes feel like a betrayal. Greed over gaming.”

Indeed, it’s now looking like there might have been some truth to those speculations, as the individual in question points to Sharma being unhappy with the direction the campaign was taking the brand in, a sentiment shared by many of Xbox’s employees. “Asha retired ‘This is an Xbox’ because it didn’t feel like Xbox. She is personally leading a reset of how we show up as a brand.”

We’re inclined to agree, as most of the ads in that campaign focused on pitching Xbox as a platform, not a console. That might be poised to change as Project Helix takes shape as a worthy contender for a console crown that the PlayStation has managed to steal away, despite the current-gen Xbox Series being a worthy adversary. It will be interesting to see how the brand repositions itself in the coming months, and we’re hoping for a more Xbox-focused approach this time around.

A revised approach to Game Pass’s pricing would be a nice touch, but that just might be wishful thinking on our part. Nevertheless, we’re all for a fresh start to the console wars and welcome some healthy competition between two of modern gaming’s giants once again.

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.

It is worth noting that neither Microsoft nor Sharma have made any official statements about potential plans to revamp the pricing structure for Game Pass. The company had introduced a tiered system of available subscriptions for Game Pass in October 2025, with the most expensive one being Game Pass Ultimate, priced at $30 per month and offering over 400 games. Slightly cheaper is the Premium tier, which includes over 200 games and costs $15 per month. Finally, Game Pass Essential offers over 50 games, and is priced at $10 every month.

Interestingly, the report had also indicated that Sharma had been in talks with Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters about a potential partnership between the streaming giant and Xbox. This partnership would apparently involve subscription bundles.

“You would have to do it in a way that works for the consumer and works for both companies, and frankly, I think Microsoft’s still trying to figure out how to make the Game Pass bundle work for Microsoft,” said Peters. “But what I like about Asha’s thinking is, it’s all about, ‘How do we do more?’ And it’s already been exciting to watch.”

The decision had drawn quite a bit of criticism from many, including one of the co-founders of Microsoft Game Studios, Laura Fryer, who called the price hikes “greed over gaming.”

“I’m not sure that their leadership understands what makes Xbox great,” she said. “I’m not sure that they’re listening to their fans. They keep doubling down on decisions that make it clear that they’ve been in a bubble, and all this feedback doesn’t seem to reach them any more.”

“Xbox didn’t reinvent [itself] by replacing the old engine with a better one,” she continued further in her video. “They just abandoned what they had and started chasing what they didn’t understand…With this last increase to Game Pass, Xbox threw away one of their last advantages: they were the best deal in gaming. These price hikes feel like a betrayal. Greed over gaming.”

The at-the-time commissioner of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Lina Khan, had referred to Microsoft as being “too-big-to-care” shortly after the price hikes were announced.

“Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been followed by significant price hikes and layoffs, harming both gamers and developers,” wrote Khan. “As we’ve seen across sectors, increasing market consolidation and increasing prices often go hand-in-hand. As dominant firms become too-big-to-care, they can make things worse for their customers without having to worry about the consequences.”

Sharma took over the role of Microsoft Gaming CEO from Phil Spencer back in February. The same report also revealed that Xbox president Sarah Bond was leaving the company as well, and that former Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty was being promoted to chief content officer.

He also praised the work that went into the backwards compatibility features of modern Xbox consoles, especially when it came to running titles like the original Xbox’s The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, and Xbox 360’s Fallout 3. “They did an incredible job with backwards compatibility,” he said. “Right now, you can go and play the original Oblivion, you can play Morrowind, you can play Fallout 3. It’s backwards compatible, it’s 4k, and like, great.”

“So that to me was like, job number one – can you play them as they were?”

He also revealed that work on The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered started because the idea of remastering older Bethesda games “kept coming up.” The fact that there hadn’t been a new mainline entry in the fantasy RPG franchise since 2011’s The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim also likely proved to be enough motivation.

“Feeling like this also serves the Elder Scrolls audience that we hadn’t had this, this is good for that audience, and having a single player game and kind of this pocket of time. But there’s a million ways that that could have gone wrong,” he said.

As for the Fallout franchise, a report from last month has indicated that the team working on Fallout 3‘s remaster is aiming for a similar level of polish and quality as The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered. “The game is still in active development, and I understand Bethesda is keen to ensure it’s as well polished as the surprise release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered last year,” wrote The Verge’s Tom Warren.

More recent reports have been adding more fuel to the fire when it comes to a remaster of Fallout 3. Earlier this month, a listing for new McFarlane toys indicated that an “Elite Edition” for Fallout 3 Remastered was planned. This edition would include a 7-inch-tall “T-45B Nuka Cola”. While few details were revealed, the name indicates that it might be a figure of power armor featuring a color palette based on the Nuka Cola brand.

Interestingly, a remaster of Fallout 3 might involve more work than previously thought. Former Bethesda developer Bruce Nesmith spoke about this back in April 2025, noting that the project would require a major revamp of the RPG’s gun-based combat. He referred to Fallout 3‘s gun combat as being “not good,” especially when compared to its contemporaries.

“[Fallout 3 combat] didn’t hold up to shooters at the time,” Nesmith explained. “Also, it’s an RPG shooter; it’s not a run-and-gun shooter. But a lot of work was done on that for Fallout 4. So I anticipate seeing a lot of that work go into it, assuming they’re doing the same thing.”

Wright, who has spent a decade at the company, hasn’t outlined what’s to come, simply “hoping for a lot of beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and discovering what lies in the space in between.” The Verge’s Tom Warren reported that she was a “direct report” to Bond, and one has to wonder how much of her departure has to do with the latter.

However, Zhang, another long-time executive, confirmed that she will be joining Netflix to “empower their journey in gaming.” In response to Warren tweeting about her departure, she responded, “It’s just a new job, dude. Apparently, people do that.” She also responded, “Sometimes it’s just all about ME and nobody else,” when another user mentioned “rats leaving a ship.”

With Asha Sharma taking over as Microsoft Gaming CEO, there have been some sizable moves made by Xbox. “This is an Xbox,” a marketing campaign that Bond seemingly spearheaded, has quietly disappeared. The company also revealed the next-generation Xbox, codenamed Project Helix. Little is officially known about its performance or other features (unofficially, it’s a different story), but Sharma confirmed that it would play Xbox and PC games. Alpha dev kits will also begin shipping next year.

There’s no word yet on a release date, but reports claim that the company is aiming for a 2027 launch if its Windows integration goes well. In the meantime, Microsoft is bringing its Gaming Copilot to Xbox Series X/S this year and Xbox Mode to Windows 11 in April.

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.

“I’m excited to announce that later this year, we will bring Gaming Copilot to the current-generation consoles,” said Yadav at the panel, “and we will continue to bring it to more services that players are playing.”

Gaming Copilot has been described by Microsoft as being “your personal gaming sidekick on Xbox”. The feature is available on Windows through the Xbox Game Bar, where players can click on the Copilot button to get more options. Among other things, Gaming Copilot offers game recommendations based on what you are currently playing or your play history, as well as in-game assistance and strategy guides and insights with “personalized coaching.”

Along with Windows 11, Gaming Copilot can also be accessed through the Xbox mobile app on iOS and Android, as well as the ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X handheld gaming PCs. Since it is still currently in beta, it is unknown whether the console launch of Gaming Copilot will bring any new functionality or features.

In an FAQ on the official Gaming Copilot web page, Microsoft has offered a variety of examples for how the feature can be used. For example, Minecraft players can ask what materials they need to craft a certain item. When asking for new game recommendations, Gaming Copilot can take into account a variety of factors, including critical reception, release dates, and even specific genres. It can also access your account history, giving you the option to ask it things like when you might be due for a renewal of a Game Pass subscription, or what the last achievement you got in Starfield was.

Interestingly, a recent patent filed by Microsoft was discovered that could make use of cloud-based AI or other players to assist those that might be stuck in games. While far from a confirmation, the patent could be an indication of how the company plans to further evolve the Gaming Copilot technology.

While the patent described many scenarios in which it could be used, it was also noted as being smart enough to automatically figure out which parts of the game would be ideal to trigger assistance. It has also been described as being quite versatile, being available in many genres. Racing game players, for instance, can use it to figure out the best driving line. Similarly, adventure games could offer lessons on how to control a hoverboard.

Sony was discovered to have filed a similar patent that could make use of an AI assistant to help players out. The patent describes “methods, systems, and devices for providing ghost assistance to a player during gameplay,” involving the creation of a “ghost character” trained on footage to be capable of identifying game scenarios and player interactions.