Next Xbox Could Cost $1,800 and Land in 2028, Report Says
A new report pegs Microsoft's next Xbox at up to $1,800, with a handheld possibly arriving first. The AI chip crunch Microsoft helped create might be why.
Microsoft's next Xbox might cost more than a decent laptop, and nobody's even confirmed it's real yet. According to GameSpot, citing a Fortune report, the console codenamed Project Helix could run between $1,200 and $1,800 when it launches in 2028, unless Microsoft decides to eat some of that cost itself. That's a big unless. Nothing here is official. Treat it as a leak until Microsoft says otherwise.
A handheld is reportedly coming too, possibly by the end of 2027, with no word yet on what it costs or what it looks like. Project Helix is apparently the umbrella name for both devices, Microsoft's attempt at a matched family of hardware instead of one console sitting alone on a shelf.
Why so expensive? Blame the same AI boom Microsoft keeps bragging about. Memory and components are getting squeezed because every tech giant, including the one making your next console, is buying up the same chips to build out AI infrastructure. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma called it "wonderful" that GPUs have uses beyond gaming. Translation: the silicon your console needs is busy running somebody's chatbot, and you get to pay the difference. Companies losing money on hardware to win you over with games and subscriptions used to be the norm. Phil Spencer said Microsoft lost up to $200 per Xbox Series X|S unit back in 2020. Whether that playbook survives a chip shortage Microsoft is partly responsible for is the actual question nobody's answering yet.
There's also an internal tug of war worth noting. The report claims Xbox and Windows teams clashed over what software runs the handheld, with Windows pushing a trimmed-down Windows Home and Xbox wanting its own dedicated build. One unnamed senior Xbox executive reportedly threatened to kill the whole handheld rather than ship it on Windows. Xbox is said to be steering the operating system now, though Sharma told Fortune the two sides still have to cooperate: "We can't build Helix on our own."
All of this is happening while Sharma, who took over in February, keeps cutting. Around 2,000 jobs are gone so far, more layoffs are reportedly coming in November and again in January 2027, studios have closed, games have been cancelled, and Halo got handed off to Activision for its future. That's the backdrop for a console that might cost as much as a gaming PC.
Maybe Microsoft subsidizes the price and this reads like old news. Maybe it doesn't, and $1,800 becomes the real number people remember from 2028. Either way, I've heard enough promises from this company this year. Show me the box on a shelf with a sticker I can actually afford before I start caring what's inside it.