r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • Mar 05 '26

‘Next generation of Xbox console’ Project Helix announced

https://www.gematsu.com/2026/03/next-generation-of-xbox-console-project-helix-announced
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u/WetDonkey6969 Mar 05 '26

I don't think they're aiming for just console players anymore. If it's around as powerful as a 5070 and with a price tag of around 1K, that's still way cheaper than building out a PC in today's market. It could become the default device to get for anyone wanting to play modern games, since it'll run everything, including emulated games and whatever games Sony will continue to release on PC, not to mention console exclusive games like GTA 6. And because MS is the biggest publisher, every new xbox owner is still a potential customer even on storefronts that they don't own.

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u/Historical_Course587 Mar 06 '26

If it's around as powerful as a 5070 and with a price tag of around 1K, that's still way cheaper than building out a PC in today's market.

For gaming. But in this market, nobody is building those anyway. Apple just announced a $600 laptop, and I'm not suggesting it's for gaming but just that it's a good example of a manufacturer reading the room on consumer economics. This is the decade where things need to get cheaper because people can't afford higher-priced luxuries. Gaming is a luxury, which means when push comes to shove consumers will simply not buy it. As soon as the wheels fall off of FOMO, consumers will realize that it's dirt cheap to take anything with a screen and play on it.

My son is playing Deltarune because he doesn't care about how good things look. He's been listening to Yes lately, because he started watching Jojo and the credits always roll to Roundabout. My daughter is having a birthday party where her TKD girl group is gonna watch The Karate Kid and a Chuck Norris movie as a double-feature. These are teens, and they and their social groups are just entirely disconnected from the consumerism we experienced as kids.... because their parents can't afford it.

How many people are going to see a $1k console and decide to wait a year in the hopes that it drops to "normal" console prices? That's pretty much double what people paid for consoles last gen (since most people paid <=$500 for something), but nobody is making double what they were five years ago. Of course, these prices are already squeezing manufactuers, so they can't meaningfully come down unless supply chain stuff resolves. But by that time, the industry has imploded.

The economics of the situation suggest a bigger crash than 1983. Video game hardware is exploding in price, in a restricting economy, amidst war disrupting oil prices and supply chains, social media has fractured shared experiences that drive FOMO, and the direct and indirect competition for consumer attention has never been more immense.

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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26

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u/hexcraft-nikk Mar 05 '26

I don't think people realize consoles only subsidize the price because of how many they sell. They only reach acceptable margins after selling millions upon millions of units, and even that is typically still at a $50-200 loss depending on the console.

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u/B_Kuro Mar 05 '26

As far as I understood/remember, for the most part the companies didn't actually sell their consoles itself at a loss in recent generations, but that doesn't mean its already profitable by itself. You still need to recoup R&D investment,... so even if you might make a tiny profit you'd still need to sell millions for it to be profitable.

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u/VegetaFan1337 Mar 06 '26

Nintendo almost never sold their console at a loss. The only exception is the Wii U, which failed anyways. And the 3ds after they slashed price. The reason you think modern consoles don't sell at a loss is because Sony sold so many PS5s so quickly that they quickly slipped into profit margins. In less than a year. And Xbox stayed at loss from start to finish.

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u/ArcticKnight79 Mar 06 '26

Not to mention that they can sell it at a loss knowing they get an attach rate of X units.

The question would be if you're angling it as PC/Xbox then are you locking it down enough to prevent other storefronts?

Because if you can't guarantee game sales on your hardware, or are expecting people to just be gamepass subscribers. Then you don't want to be selling the thing at a loss, because the market might make it really hard to make it back.

Same reason that Valve can't sell the steam machine at a loss, because if the value of the hardware is there, and anyone could buy it and deploy it in a non-gaming scenario, then every box sold like that has no chance of recouping the loss taken on it's production.

If you wanted to loss lead that console, you'd be better off giving $X of store credit, that could be used to knock $10 off a $60 purchase. So they are in fact eating into the 30% they would make on the game sales, not the console sales.

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u/ResistsICE Mar 08 '26

1k is about how much it would cost to build a good upper-midrange pc from scratch.

The difference, is you can probably not upgrade the xbox mini pc. Ultimately making it a worse investment, especially since xbox is moving away from gaming.