Between $1,200 and $1,800: that is the price Microsoft is reportedly projecting internally for its next console, according to Fortune. The Xbox Helix, expected for the 2028 holiday season, would therefore sell at a gaming-PC price, unless Microsoft pays part of it itself. None of this is official, and an Xbox executive has already disputed part of the story.
What Fortune wrote about Xbox Helix
Sebastian Herrera’s piece, published on October 20, 2026, is first a profile of Asha Sharma, the head of Xbox, and it relies on anonymous sources. Three pieces of hardware news come out of it: a next-generation handheld for the 2027 holidays, the Project Helix console (the codename for the next Xbox) for the 2028 holidays, and a price of $1,200 to $1,800 for that console, before any subsidy. Fortune quotes Asha Sharma: « We can’t build Helix on our own. »
That same piece also reports another figure, unrelated to price: Asha Sharma has reportedly cut 1,868 jobs out of the 3,200 planned over the next year, with more rounds expected in October, November and January. Microsoft’s Judson Althoff defends her appointment there: « We would not have put her on a business we intend to sell. »
A PC price for a console
This range is in dollars, and nothing says it applies to France. Nobody has given a French price, and converting dollars into euros would make no sense before an official price is announced. To set the scale, here is what consoles cost in France today.
- The Xbox Series X with a disc drive has cost €799.99 since August 1, 2026, according to Xboxygen. Microsoft cites the rising cost of memory and storage.
- The PS5 Pro has cost €899.99 since April 2, 2026, up from €749.99, according to iPhoneSoft (Nadim Lefebvre, March 27).
Both the Series X and the PS5 Pro are therefore already close to €800 and €900 in France. An Xbox Helix at $1,200 or more would extend that rise. Fortune does specify that the price changes if Microsoft subsidizes the device, as manufacturers often do when a console launches, selling at a loss to get the machine into homes.
The 2027 handheld and the Windows dispute
Thurrott (Laurent Giret, October 21) sums up the plan: two devices, as with the Xbox Series X and S, the handheld first and the console about a year later. Today’s ROG Xbox Ally handhelds are Windows 11 PCs and do not run console games like GTA VI. A Microsoft-built Xbox handheld would support all Xbox games, according to Thurrott (which relies on Fortune’s report).
At issue is the operating system. According to Fortune, Windows leaders wanted a trimmed-down version of Windows Home for the handheld, while Asha Sharma’s team wanted to build and control its own software, for better gaming performance. An Xbox executive reportedly threatened to scrap the handheld rather than adopt the Windows version. The headline of the Windows Central piece (Zac Bowden) points the same way: the Windows and Xbox teams reportedly clashed over the system built for gaming, and the console would slip to 2028.
What Microsoft denies, and what it leaves untouched
Scott Van Vliet, Xbox’s chief technology officer, replied on X, and Pure Xbox relays his statement: the Helix operating system is built on Windows. Thurrott quotes this sentence from it: « The account cited here misrepresents both the technical work and the relationship between the teams. »
The denial is partial. It targets the story of the dispute between teams and the way the Helix system is built. In the texts we could read, it disputes neither the 2027 handheld, nor the 2028 console, nor the price range. We could not read the Pure Xbox page in full, so the quote comes from Thurrott.
Wait or buy now
A 2028 console is two years away, and Microsoft has confirmed neither the date nor the price. If you want to play on Xbox now, this report is therefore not a reason to postpone a purchase: the machine Fortune describes will not ship before the end of 2028. If you are torn between a console and a PC, a $1,200 price would bring the Xbox Helix closer to the latter, and the 2027 handheld will arrive first to show what Microsoft is preparing.
We had already mentioned the next Xbox in our news roundup of March 6, 2026. Microsoft’s next official announcements will show whether the dates and the price reported by Fortune hold.
0 Commentaires
Aucun commentaire pour le moment. Soyez le premier à commenter !