Xbox's console efforts have been a mixed bag, to say the least. The company built a strong reputation with the original Xbox, cemented its dominance with the Xbox 360, began losing its grip on the market with the Xbox One, and seems to have completely thrown in the towel during the Xbox Series X/S generation, at least when it comes to long-standing industry practices like exclusive games. But Xbox isn't completely abandoning its hardware ambitions.
Another Xbox console was recently announced by the official Xbox Twitter account, which referred to it as Project Helix. In conjunction with this announcement was a tweet from newly anointed Xbox Gaming CEO Asha Sharma, in which she announced that “Project Helix will lead the way in performance and play your Xbox and PC games.” The “performance leadership” bit is to be expected – basically every new console, outside of those specifically marketed as low-spec budget options, is considered “the most powerful” by its creators. But the comment about playing both Xbox and PC games is interesting, if only for the fact that it essentially confirms something that has been widely reported and speculated for months: the next Xbox will be, more or less, a console-PC hybrid, which could indeed lead to some very strange results.
Another 'Xbox' may be able to play PlayStation Exclusives
Over the past few years, Sony has brought many of its high-profile exclusives to PC, including:
- Ghost of Tsushima
- Marvel's Spider-Man
- Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
- Marvel's Spider-Man 2
- god of war
- God of War Ragnarok
- Unknown 4
- The Last of Us Part 1
- The Last of Us Part 2
If you ask a PlayStation user what some of the best PS exclusives are, there's a good chance they'll name at least one of the aforementioned. Their migration to PC is therefore very important, as these are what originally sold PlayStation consoles. The working assumption has long been that Sony doesn't view the PC as a competitive platform the way it views the Switch or Xbox. PC users are less likely to abandon their hardware in favor of a home console, and they represent Sony's lost game sales.
It makes a lot of sense, and the data seems to back it up: as of 2018 god of war It has reportedly sold over 4-million copies on Steam since its 2022 port – not bad for a four-year-old game. But matters are getting more complicated, especially with the announcement of Project Helix. If another Xbox can play PC games, allegedly from Steam (after all, the ROG Xbox Companion can), that means every PlayStation that gets a PC version will be technically playable on an Xbox device. The idea of playing The last of us or god of war Getting used to Microsoft's home console is a bit difficult, but it will be a worthwhile gain for Xbox, which has been porting many of its high-profile games to PlayStation for the past few years, giving nothing to its own audience in return.
Don't get used to the idea of playing PlayStation games on the new Xbox
As it happens, a recent report by longtime industry insider Jason Schrier for Bloomberg alleges that Sony is going to scale back its PC releases. There are no plans to bring it in, according to Bloomberg Ghost of Yotei or SarosOne of the most anticipated PS5 exclusives of 2026, on PC. Project Helix may be able to run Ghost of TsushimaBut it probably won't work Ghost of Yotei At any given point. You may be able to play return On the device, but no Saros. Shrier's report says that Sony's multiplayer games are still expected to launch on PC.
Schreier's report says that PC sales of the aforementioned games have not met Sony's expectations, although the impending (if RAM-less) Steam Machine release may have also played a role in this decision. It's also possible that Sony has seen the writing on the wall regarding the Xbox, as have many consumers, its pivot to a PC-console hybrid approach. If audiences can play PlayStation games on Valve or Microsoft devices, it could dilute the PlayStation brand. This is doubly true if Valve or Microsoft can truly compete with Sony on the power and pricing fronts.
Still, I don't see a reality where Sony actually pulls its existing PC ports from online stores or anything like that. The bell has rung, as it were, and doing something so radical only serves to generate negative publicity without any real financial or strategic benefit. So, Sony seems to be doubling down on its classic exclusive practices, but many of its tentpole releases from the past decade will likely still be available on PC, and thus, the next Xbox. It's definitely not what I expected the “console wars” to look like for the next generation, but it should be interesting to watch it unfold.
