Your next Xbox could cost as much as a high-end gaming PC. According to a new Fortune profile of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, Microsoft’s next-generation hardware effort — codenamed Project Helix — carries an internal price projection of $1,200 to $1,800 for consumers, unless the company decides to subsidize the hardware. That is a staggering number for a game console, and it would put the next Xbox far above anything the console market has ever seen.
Fortune reports that the Helix lineup will arrive in two waves: a “next-generation handheld device” targeting the 2027 holiday season, followed by the full console in the 2028 holidays. Sharma has described Helix as a “family of devices,” a framing Microsoft has been building toward since March, when it confirmed the next Xbox will run both Xbox and PC games and reach developers’ hands starting next year.
The reason for the sky-high projection is no mystery: component costs. The AI boom has sent memory and RAM prices surging across the entire electronics industry, and console makers are feeling it hardest. Fortune’s reporting notes Sony’s PlayStation 6 storage and memory components alone are said to cost the company over $680 per console — and rumors already suggest the PS6 could land above $1,000. Industry analyst Joost van Dreunen put it bluntly earlier this year: north of $1,000 is the floor, and “the next generation may not even release until 2028.”
Microsoft already knows how painful this gets. It recently raised Xbox Series S and X prices by up to $150 and introduced Buy Now, Pay Later options through Microsoft Stores to soften the blow. And back in 2021, the company admitted it had been selling Xbox consoles at a loss for years — a strategy that may not survive a $1,200-plus bill of materials.
The Fortune profile also revealed some friction inside Microsoft. Xbox has reportedly clashed with its Windows counterparts over what software Project Helix will run: Windows leaders wanted the handheld to use a trimmed-down version of Windows Home, while Sharma’s team wants to build and control its own software for the best gaming performance.
There are service-side changes coming too. Fortune claims Microsoft plans to overhaul Xbox Game Pass into an “a la carte” system, letting players pick and pay for features like cloud gaming and multiplayer add-ons individually.
It’s worth remembering these are internal projections, not an official announcement. Microsoft could subsidize the hardware, component prices could ease, or plans could shift — there are still more than two years before the console’s reported target window. But if these numbers hold, the next generation of consoles won’t just be more powerful. They will be in a completely different price bracket.
Sources: VGC, Digital Trends, Engadget
