Project Helix price: next Xbox may cost $1,200 to $1,800

Microsoft's next Xbox console could be the most expensive games console yet. A Fortune report published on Tuesday, October 20, says Microsoft has internally projected that Project Helix, its next-generation Xbox, will cost buyers between $1,200 and $1,800, unless the company decides to subsidize the price.

The same report says an Xbox handheld comes first, by the 2027 holiday season, with the Helix console following by the 2028 holidays. Microsoft has not confirmed any of this. Here is what the report says, what Microsoft has officially said about Project Helix, and how that price compares with what consoles cost today.

What the Fortune report says about Project Helix price

The details come from a long profile of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma by Fortune reporter Sebastian Herrera. Sharma was interviewed, but the hardware plans are attributed to people familiar with the strategy rather than to her. The key line reads: "As it stands, the price of the Helix console has internally been projected to cost consumers between $1,200 and $1,800, unless Microsoft decides to subsidize the cost."

That is an internal projection, not a price. Console makers have often sold hardware for less than it costs to build and made the money back on games and subscriptions. Microsoft said as much in June, when it wrote that consoles "are typically not sold at a profit, but instead for less than they cost to make." So the figure is best read as what Helix might cost if Microsoft charged roughly what it costs to make, not as the sticker price you will see in 2028.

Fortune's sources also say Microsoft has pushed the hardware team to bring its internal engineering deadlines forward by at least several months, partly by using AI tools where they help, according to Ars Technica's summary of the report.

Project Helix release date: handheld in 2027, console in 2028

According to Fortune, Sharma plans to release "a next-generation handheld device" by the 2027 holiday season and the next console by the holidays in 2028. The report does not say whether the handheld would be built by Microsoft or by a partner such as Asus, which makes the current ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, as The Verge points out. Sharma has previously described Project Helix as "a family of devices," so the handheld and the console may both carry the name.

No price was reported for the handheld. For context, Microsoft's current handheld option is the ROG Xbox Ally family, built and sold by Asus and running Windows 11 with a full-screen Xbox experience.

Microsoft's own public timeline matches the late launch. At the Game Developers Conference in March, Xbox vice president Jason Ronald said Microsoft plans to ship alpha versions of the Helix hardware to developers beginning in 2027. Early developer hardware usually arrives a year or more before a console goes on sale.

What Microsoft has officially said about Project Helix

Microsoft announced Project Helix at GDC on March 11, 2026. In an Xbox Wire post, Ronald said it is a first-party console "designed to play your Xbox console and PC games." It runs on a custom AMD chip and is designed alongside the next versions of DirectX and AMD's FSR upscaling. Microsoft promises "an order of magnitude leap in ray tracing performance," meaning far more realistic lighting and reflections, plus machine learning built directly into the graphics pipeline.

On October 20, AMD added that Helix will use a future upscaler it calls FSR Diamond. Upscaling lets a game render at a lower resolution and rebuild a sharper image, which helps a console hit higher frame rates.

Microsoft has not announced a name, a release date, specs or a price. Sharma has told GameFile that memory prices are part of the decision: "Memory costs will impact pricing, will impact availability," she said, adding that Xbox was "not ready to share a launch timeline right now."

Why the next Xbox could cost over $1,000

The short answer is memory. AI data centers are buying up huge amounts of RAM and flash storage, and prices for consumer devices have climbed with them. In June, Microsoft said console storage and memory prices had "increased by more than 2.5x" and that it expects "another doubling by the fall of 2027."

That has already pushed today's consoles far above their launch prices. Since August 1, 2026, Microsoft's US prices are $499.99 for the Xbox Series S 512GB, $599.99 for the Series S 1TB, $749.99 for the Series X Digital and $799.99 for the Series X with a disc drive. The Series X launched at $499.99 and the Series S at $299.99 in 2020.

Rivals are in the same bind. Sony's PS5 Pro is now $899.99 in the US, and Valve's Steam Machine costs $1,049. Last week a hardware leaker claimed the memory and storage in Sony's PS6 alone could cost Sony over $680 per console, a claim Sony has not confirmed.

Analysts had warned this was coming. "At this rate, the next generation may not even release until 2028, and when it does, north of a grand is the floor," Aldora CEO Joost van Dreunen told GamesIndustry.biz earlier this year, as quoted by VGC. Windows Central's Zac Bowden suggested a Microsoft subsidy could bring Helix closer to $1,000, but that is a guess, not a reported figure.

How $1,200 to $1,800 compares with consoles today

Even the bottom of Fortune's range would be $400 more than today's Xbox Series X with a disc drive and $300 more than the PS5 Pro. The top of the range is more than double the Series X and around $750 more than the Steam Machine, which is a small gaming PC rather than a traditional console.

A console at that price would sit closer to a high-end gaming PC than to the $300 to $500 boxes of previous generations. That matters because Helix is designed to play PC games as well as Xbox games, so Microsoft may be pitching it partly against gaming PCs rather than only against PlayStation.

Xbox and Windows clash over Helix software

Fortune also reports a fight over what software the handheld should run. Windows leaders reportedly wanted it to use a trimmed-down version of Windows Home, while Sharma's team wanted to build and control its own software for better gaming performance. According to people briefed on the clash, a senior Xbox executive threatened to scrap the handheld rather than adopt the Windows build, and Xbox now largely controls the direction of the software. "We can't build Helix on our own," Sharma told Fortune.

Microsoft pushed back on that part on October 21. Xbox chief technology officer Scott Van Vliet wrote on X: "Helix OS is being built on Windows, and the XBOX and Windows teams are working closely together on the next generation of devices. The account cited here misrepresents both the technical work and the relationship between the teams." He did not address the price or the release dates.

Game Pass overhaul and more Xbox layoffs

The report says Xbox is planning a major overhaul of Game Pass in which players choose features a la carte, with add-ons for console-only games, cloud gaming and multiplayer on a tiered structure. Microsoft has not announced it, and it is not yet clear what would happen to day-one game releases or overall prices.

Fortune also reports that Sharma plans another round of Xbox layoffs this month, followed by more in November and January, according to The Verge's summary. Some current and former staff told Fortune they worry the cuts are preparing Xbox for a sale or spinoff. Microsoft executive Judson Althoff rejected that: "We would not have put [Sharma] on a business we intend to sell. There's going to be a ton of speculation about all this. Time will tell."

Xbox has around 100 million daily active users today, according to Fortune, and Sharma's long-term goal is more than 1 billion people a day. Microsoft reports its next quarterly results on October 28.

What it means if you're waiting for the next Xbox

Nothing here is official, and two years is a long time in hardware. Memory prices could ease, Microsoft could subsidize the console, or the plans could change. But the report fits everything Microsoft has said publicly: developer hardware in 2027, rising memory costs, and three price increases for the current consoles.

If you play mostly on an Xbox Series X or S, it will keep getting new games for years, and AMD's FSR 4.1 upscaler is coming to both. If you are tempted by a handheld, the next Xbox-branded one may arrive about a year before Helix itself. We will update this story if Microsoft comments on the price or dates.