Xbox anticipates changes beyond Project Helix

Yesterday Nintendo closed non-E3. The video game fair as we knew it died a few years agobut its spirit lives on in the form of conferences that take place in the first half of June and in which companies show the news that will arrive on their platforms over the coming months. PlayStation, the aforementioned Nintendo, the Summer Game Fest or the PC Game Show have been some of them, but If there is one that is attracting attention, it is Xbox.

And it turns out that he is not talking about his games (many old acquaintances that are now simply dated), but rather because of the change in strategy after the arrival of Asha Sharma as new CEO from Microsoft’s video game division. Because where before there were own games that would even come out for PlayStation, now there are a return to console exclusives. And within those consoles is a Project Helix which, supposedly, will be the new Microsoft machine and that it will not be easy.

To the point that they are rethinking what Project Helix should be, how much it should cost or if we are prepared for such expensive consoles. And Asha Sharma adds one more question: a business model we would never have expected and that could start this year.

We are going little by little because there is a lot to unpack.

From the “can Xbox be fixed?” to a Project Helix that arrives at the worst possible time

After a conference like the one we saw on Sunday, it is logical that questions will arise. The entire conversation is revolving around the issue of the return to exclusives, implying that a Microsoft that finds it difficult to maintain stock of its own consoles is abandoning a fleet of Sony consoles that exceeds, by several tens of millions of units, the installed Xbox.

Microsoft games on PS5 They operate on a commercial levelwith notable examples such as ‘Forza Horizon 5‘and, above all, ‘Sea of ​​Thieves‘. But Sharma wants Xbox to become number one in gaming and believes that that path passes through the return of the exclusives. It is a somewhat strange maneuver because those first chosen will be ‘Gears of War E-Day‘ (which we later learned was planned for PS5 until a few days ago) and ‘Clockwork Revolution‘.

Others like ‘Halo: Campaign Evolved‘for this July 28 or future ones’State of Decay 3‘, ‘Fables‘ and ‘Senua‘yes they will see the light on the Sony console. If nothing changes again, of course. Matt Booty, head of the Xbox games division, warned at the conference that each case will be reviewed individually, implying that they are also not very clear about which games will reach other consoles and which will not.

But, in any case and beyond the video games themselves, there is something else floating in the air. We know that Xbox is working on its new console, the aforementioned Helix. It will be a kind of hybrid between console and PC, something that makes a lot of sense if we take into account Microsoft’s business and, above all, that Steam is preparing exactly the same thing with its Steam Machine.

A few weeks ago, Asha Sharma commented that the hardware existed and they are closing the details to be able to send the development kits (necessary to start developing the games) to the video game studios at the beginning of next year. He also ‘threatened’ the price, pointing out that Project Helix will not be a cheap machine because the situation with the components is what it is.

Hardware that will have a good amount of memory and storage will be very, very expensive. We are seeing it on mobilesrouters and even on the Raspberry Pibut what has scared many of us is the relaunch of a Steam Machine with a premium of almost 300 euros. After being out of stock for months due to out-of-stock due to the supply of components, the machine returned with several hundred euros extra price.

This situation did not bode well either for a Steam Machine that, supposedly, will arrive this summer… or for a PS6 and Project Helix that we should see sometime in 2027. Given all the necessary context, let’s go with Matthew Ball.

Ball is Xbox’s new head of strategy. He responds to a Sharma who asked him one thing before signing him: Can Xbox be fixed? Ball believes so, rewarding players who have stayed on Xbox with this return of exclusives as a way to “validate the historical investment” of those players. It must be remembered that someone who buys a ‘Forza Horizon 6‘on PS5 he is also an Xbox player, for example, but oh well.

About Helix, Ball points out in a interview that it would not make sense for the company to get out of the hardware business and that they are making this return to exclusives, precisely, to strengthen their platform. Now, it also supports what Sharma already said: the next Xbox will arrive in a context in which the AI ​​boom has skyrocketed the cost of components.

In addition to pointing out that they cannot produce consoles at the same rate as they are demanded (hence the stock outage in many markets, with Xbox Series X showing a premium because they are not units that Xbox sells directly), points out something interesting: They are fighting to make the console design not be compromised by the situation, but at the same time trying to make it affordable in a context of high costs that are expected to continue for at least the next two and a half years.

That is to say: they need to launch a new machine, but one that is not as expensive as the original vision they had for Helix would be. At the same time, it must be more powerful than the current ones, but perhaps not so much because, if not, it would go down in price. This is something that Asha Sharma herself, in a interview different, he also comments.

The CEO believes that mass audiences will not spend “thousands of dollars on a new generation of consoles.” That is in line with what Ball hints at when he says that they are rethinking the situation and what they will launch, but he says something else: “I think we will begin to see radically different business models that we would never have expected to start working at a later time this year.”

And that is, in those words of Sharma, where the sauce is.

“Radically different new business models”

Up to this point, I was reviewing official statements and the market situation, so everything I comment from now on will be based on “radically different business models.” understanding that refers to something groundbreaking in the console segmentand seeing how the situation is, only two things come to mind.

The first is that they launch a machine with a very attractive price, but that users seek to buy because it will be the only one where they will be able to access those exclusive games and that ecosystem that the new management of the brand seeks to rebuild. This would mean selling at a loss.something that there are brands that do or have done in the past, but that in this situation would imply going to a loss on hardware that, basically, will be quite expensive.

Because it is not the same to go How was Sony doing with PS3?to losses on a machine that still cost the user 600 euros, than to go to losses with a machine that costs the user 800 or 900 euros. It’s a lot of money to risk with a launch like that, especially when we are not in the same situation than in 2006 when there were not as many entertainment media for consoles to compete against.

The second is to maintain a strategy of two machines in the market, but one is virtual. Xbox has already launched this strategy of a very powerful machine for enthusiasts (Xbox Series X) and a less capable one without physical support for those who want to access a 100% digital library (Xbox Series S).

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The change would be that Xbox Series X would now be the least powerful and the one that Microsoft would continue to sell physically, being that Project Helix, simply, a console in the cloud, something similar to GeForce Now from Nvidia. And I explain myself.

With Game Pass you can play the library by streaming and Microsoft has been moving so that you can not only play the games from the subscription catalog in the cloud, but also your own digital games. With a Project Helix that is a cloud service that can be accessed from any device, Microsoft would not have to package hardware, but simply use the power of its servers and data centers.

So, if I want to play a future ‘Halo’, I can do it on my Xbox Series Game Pass in a more expensive subscription to play it with higher quality on that Helix through streaming. It is already happening on the PC, with Nvidia offering several levels of GeForce Now, each with “virtual” hardware to access, with the most powerful option being the most expensive.

That resonates with the idea of ​​that “radically different business model” which Sharma talks about and would allow Xbox to continue competing in a scenario in which we are seeing that we cannot buy hardware at a good price because either there is none or it is simply too expensive. And later, if the crisis is resolved, package that in console form.

In the end, this segment of the article is pure and simple speculation, but I don’t think I’m taking too much risk considering both the situation and the model that Nvidia is following, which seems very comfortable in this streaming gaming scenario as it has no competition.

Because Game Pass works well for streamingbut the games are still running on an Xbox Series RTX 5080 that Nvidia makes available to you in its GeForce Now.

Either way, only time will tell, but what is clear is that Asha Sharma is clear that she wants to return to the good old days of Xbox… and that she wants to do it at the most difficult time.

Images | Fortune Conversations (edited)

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