The Speculations Regarding The Upcoming Xbox Console Are Accurate, And It May Transform Gaming
It has been more than five years since we entered the “next generation” of gaming with the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. Depending on your perspective, the downturn of the Xbox has been quite noticeable as the continuous growth of Xbox Game Pass and the accessibility of the console’s “exclusives” on PC — and very soon PlayStation as well — has only increased thanks to the company’s extensive strategy of backing various platforms. Nevertheless, it appears Xbox is not quite ready to abandon hardware. Instead, the upcoming Xbox console will pave the way, as Microsoft asserts it can run both PC and Xbox games.
While speculation has been circulating for months, we have finally received our first concrete insight into what to anticipate from Microsoft’s forthcoming Xbox. The newly appointed Xbox CEO Asha Sharma revealed on X today that the new console, codenamed Project Helix, will “play your Xbox and PC games,” and that the gaming firm plans to disclose more about its features and expectations at GDC later this month.
And that’s the catch. We still possess limited information regarding the next generation of Xbox consoles. Sure, numerous speculations exist, but with the persistent chip shortage and soaring RAM costs — which have escalated to the point where future laptop configurations might entirely change — a more gaming console that potentially functions as a PC could aid consumers in rationalizing the purchase and provide Xbox a rationale for the pricing.
PC games are arriving on the next Xbox
Most of the rumors we’ve encountered in recent months originated in 2025, when Microsoft unveiled the initial details about its intention to launch an Xbox-branded variant of ASUS’s ROG Ally. The ROG Xbox Ally X presented an intriguing perspective on Xbox gaming, not only granting access to PC games but also allowing users to play Xbox games, provided they had a PC version. However, that’s where it stopped being an Xbox, as it lacked the ability to play Xbox-exclusive games natively.
Naturally, the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X were merely components of the “This is an Xbox” initiative, where the company underscored all devices capable of playing Xbox games through the cloud. Moreover, with the Xbox ROG Ally achieving notable success by implementing the Xbox UI on a portable Windows device, it doesn’t seem far-fetched that the company will logically advance by making its next console more akin to a PC as well. In fact, we are already observing other companies creating living-room friendly PCs with the launch of the Steam Machine from Valve. Additionally, there’s Xbox’s ongoing collaboration with AMD. In a video commemorating the partnership, from June 2025, Sarah Bond, former President of Xbox, suggested that future Xbox consoles would not be restricted to a single storefront.
While the ROG Xbox Ally is unable to play native Xbox games, Bond reassured fans that this wouldn’t hold true for its upcoming consoles. If Microsoft fully embraces the notion of making everything an Xbox, then it will fundamentally alter our gaming experiences. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long for further details, as GDC begins on March 9, 2026.