In an interview with Japanese magazine Famitsu, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer reveals that the next Xbox console is being made with input from Japanese developers.
New Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma, who took over as the head of the Xbox business last week as longtime Xbox boss Phil Spencer retired, has confirmed the codename for Xbox's next-generation console – Project Helix – and also confirmed long-swirling rumors that the device will play Xbox and PC games.
Hm.
Selling to customers the benefits of Xbox Helix compared to a PC and Steam Machine will be the biggest task for Xbox' marketing, I suppose.
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The question will be if you have a PC, why buy a Xbox that plays PC and Xbox games… Unless they plan to have you buy a Xbox PC instead of a dedicated PC. Thats got to be the plan. Take some of the PC players and turn them into console PC players. They couldn’t give you full access to the PC/console like you can with a dedicated PC because you would think the piracy for the “dedicated” Xbox games would be crazy. Yeah, they are really going to have to explain who this is for. If you can install whatever you want then you would have Steam access. This directly copies the Steam box idea so I’m sure Steam isn’t happy about it. I guess time will tell.
Basically a PC with an Xbox logo slapped on, just like the so called Xbox handheld.
My guess is it won't play my Xbox games I have on disc 🤔
Bloomberg reports Sony is weighing a next PlayStation delay to 2028 or 2029, while Nintendo considers a Switch 2 price increase in 2026.
Sony's Chief Financial Officer, Lin Tao, has officially stated that the PlayStation 5 is currently "only in the middle of its journey." During a recent earnings call on November 11, 2025, Tao emphasized the company's intention to extend the PS5's lifecycle, suggesting that they plan to support the console for several more years, potentially until 2030.
To even pretend that PS6 is "delayed" is disengenuous.
I'm not saying the console is or isn't delayed, but people are taking broad statements and just running with what they want to hear or what gets the most clicks which is always "Sony is doomed".
PlayStation 4 is still being supported by Sony, and will probably still be supported when PS6 releases. Even if PS6 released at the end of this year PS5 would still only be halfway through its life cycle.
The claim of "delayed" refers to a set time being pushed back. Sony hasn't set a time for release. "Delay" is on the headline.
Leadership stated that it most likely won't be until '29 or '30.
And we already had this rumor awhile ago.
https://n4g.com/news/268427...
They always say this kind of thing every generation with the idea that the current consoles "life cycle" extends into the life cycle of the next one.
Nothing is true, everything can be spun for press.
The PS4 is still here 5 years after the PS5 launched, now with a lifespan of 12/13 years.
We just got the PRO. And Sony had already mentioned we are only halfway through the generation. So yeah this makes sense.
Good
Ps5 feels barely started and we barely got out of the part where games are on ps4 as well
I agree. I got my PS5 at launch and the years have whizzed by. The PS4 is still out there and that's 12/13 years old.
agreed. I'm still using my launch PS4. that thing was built like a tank and still going strong to this day. sure I have my PS5 too and the launch PS4 feel a little redundant as all its games are playable on PS5 but sometime my kids are using my PS5, lucky me I also have the PS4 Pro. so I can still play my PS4 games on that too. I think maybe sometime down the line, I might get myself the PS5 Pro but unlike the PS4 Pro, which offers 4K gaming over 1080p of the original PS4, I still can't find any reason to upgrade to the PS5 Pro. having an OLED TV, games on the original PS5 still look gorgeous!
another thing I'm doing right now is buying PS3 games for dirt cheap and play those games I missed out on the PS3. Recently bought Space Marine, Red Faction Armageddon, Bulletstorm and others. gotta play those too but the fact that the PS3 doesn't have suspend features, now feeling like a true pain in the a$$. If only Sony would allow us to play PS3 games on the PS5 through BC, I would be so happy and I will be able to play these old games on my Portal without having to subscribe to PS+ Premium.
A release date for the PS6 was never established... it actually has not even been announced. Therefore how is it delayed?
This really doesn't bother me at all. The PS5 has so much life left in it. Especially given the incremental increases we've seen in graphics fidelity over the last generation or so.
With previous releases I think there was often a case for people wanting better graphics but these days, is anyone really playing games and thinking "if only it had better graphics"? My impression is people care way more about gameplay and story in comparison.
The current consoles are sufficient, the PS4 is still about 5 years after the PS5 launched, last gen consoles were replaced too early, knock out the next consoles in 2030. On another note, the cost of gaming now, next gen is going to buckle most gamers.
AMD has mentioned that the next-gen Xbox is on track for release in 2027, which means we might be in the final year of the Series X|S.
They might think taking a crack at the PC/console hybrid approach might work out for them... but with PS6 delayed until 2029 at least, there went the power advantage that paying all that extra money was supposed to afford them once PS6 does launch. Also, releasing a console right now is stupid with RAM prices as high as they are. Either we're gonna be forking out $1200-1500 for this thing, or it's going to get downgraded. It costs over $700 to put 64GB of RAM into a PC right now because all the AI datacenters are buying up ALL the RAM.
Maybe a select few gamers will be willing to fork out that much $ for a system that is more powerful than PS5 Pro, but most gamers are only just now feeling like PS5 is hitting its stride and still has a few years of life left in it before we need to move on to a new generation. Plus, by the time PS6 does launch, RAM prices will be stablizing, so PS6 will be able to put much more of its overall budget towards a more powerful GPU and CPU vs. having to spend such a large chunk of the budget just on RAM like the new Xbox will, assuming it does drop next year while still in the midst of this RAM crisis.
People said the same thing about xbox 360 launching early but it turned out pretty good. Microsoft's R&D is much larger and more cash rich than Sony's. They have the money to do it. One of the reason Sony is waiting because they arent ready to spend billions more on hardware and the PS5 is still selling and that would definitely hurt their sales. Plus they just released Ps5 pro.
The series x isn't selling well so for Microsoft its a good time to get ready for next gen. The next console from xbox is gonna be for core gamers and no matter when sony launches it probably wont have many advances over Magnus if any at all. Im confident it will be on par or better than the next Playstation. Even the series x does features that ps5 or the pro still cant do. Sony shouldn't of released the PS5 pro. Imo its not needed and underwhelming. They could of used what they spent on that for the PS6
First, no one actually said that PS6 is delayed.
The rumor started with Tom Henderson saying he thought PlayStation might consider delaying the PS6 due to RAM prices. He specifically did not say that he heard that they were going to delay it or anything like that, it was 100% speculation, and he never implied otherwise.
That said, let them delay it, the PS5 Pro especially with FSR 4 coming in the next month or so, will be more than sufficient. There isn't going to be any publishers, including Microsoft, willing to skip PlayStation's user base, especially when publishers seem eager to put games on Switch 2 which is a significant step down even from the base PS5. So, the idea that having more power is really going to shift things in their favor is extremely hard to believe.
Microsoft can make as many consoles as they want, the issue is convincing people to buy them.
Both the PS5 and the Switch 2 sold double the amount of consoles in December that the SX sold in the entire year of 2025. And I doubt that a super expensive co-pilot box is going to help them, especially if you look at the lackluster sales AI equipped PC's have seen.
The next Xbox issaid to have 36 GB of memory so the price short from ram should not be as apocalyptic as a 64 GB kit. With the PS6 coming in with 30 GB, the RAM should not be what makes the Xbox cost so much more. Of course without Microsoft subsidizing the console the actual MSRPs may diverge wildly.
32GB of DDR5 still costs in the neighborhood of $250-300 for the super cheap stuff, $450 for the name brand. That's what entire consoles used to cost. That eats up a huge chunk of the budget that was supposed to be paying for the CPU and GPU, which means that the cost of this system will be driven farther north than previously anticipated, and it was already expected to be above $1k. Releasing a console in the middle of an industry-wide RAM shortage is stupid. Even GPU makers are scaling back production because of it, and focusing their remaining stock and production towards selling to datacenters. Some memory manufacturers have dropped consumer products entirely and now only make chips for datacenters. Nvidia is scaling back its consumer GPUs, no longer offering the super series of some GPUs, for instance.
For MS to pull the trigger now means releasing at a very risky price point against a PS5 that is simply on fire, even outselling the Switch 2 in many cases. It's coming at a time where the Xbox brand is at its weakest ever, and consumer confidence in the brand is at absolute rock bottom. Nobody wants to drop $1500 on an Xbox when they can play the same games on their PS5 Pro for half the price already, or even cheaper if using a base PS5. Only a select few enthusiasts will bother to fork out that kind of money... by the time this product reaches a price point where it can have mass-market appeal, the PS6 will be dropping... but by that time, RAM prices will be dropping, so PS6 will now be able to, assuming it does delay until 2029, invest more into upgrading its architecture over the previously released spec, invest in more RAM than the new Xbox will have, a better CPU & GPU, etc.
As for nobody saying PS6 will launch in 2029, nobody said it would come sooner either, not officially, at least. As of now all we have to go by are rumors based on internal information that could easily change at a moment's notice. Even the design of the chip itself could change as it has not yet entered into production. They could easily opt to include a few more CUs, more RAM, more CPU cores, etc. between now and when it does officially enter production. So, MS could drop a new Xbox now, but it wouldn't be wise, at all, for them to do so if they plan on even holding a candle agains the juggernaut that will be PS6. PS5 will most likely mop the floor with it due to its price point alone.
And that's assuming MS even gives the green light to start manufacturing the console to begin with. We'll see in the coming months if production even happens. Microsoft's shareholders damn sure aren't going to be willing to subsidize anything at all after they just dumped $100b into buying game publishers, expecting to see a ROI, and not seeing it anywhere near as fast as they'd hoped, which is why we're now playing Xbox games on PS5.
As for MS sitting on RAM, they are sitting on some, but Xbox is sitting on none. Microsoft knows good and well they will make far more money putting that RAM into datacenters than they ever would putting it into a console that is already at a huge disadvantage before it even launches, and has little hope of generating a lot of sales.
It'll end up being a Windows based machine that utilizes an Xbox ecosystem as well to play their game library on. But you'll end up being able to buy games from places like Steam as well more than likely.
Would make the most sense honestly. Best of both worlds.
Microsoft should just ditch Xbox and cash in on PC and PlayStation games, maybe even Switch 2. Apparently, they make a loss on hardware, so what's the point?
Some people never learn, and others are destined to learn the hard way, that's how.
What's meant to be will always find a way. The next xbox is gonna happen no matter how much fanboys are still wishing for its death. The core fans will always be there.
What Xbox was is dead. Long live Xbox. I mean Halo and fable are coming to PlayStation this year. Gears and forza are already there. I'm here for it. I will absolutely give MS publishing my money if they make good games.
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that s weird .....what they mean by saying " Input from Japanese Developers"?? will they release exclusive games based only on the architecture of next Xbox ?? that would be a real surprise (and a huge mistake) since the mistakes of X360 era ( the release of exlcusive Japanese games on a console where its fanbese never cared for them ) and the status of Xone currently in Japan
Interesting
“Microsoft has traditionally struggled with its console sales in Japan, despite numerous efforts by the company to gain a foothold in the region. Its most significant effort came during the Xbox 360 era, when it released a number of Japanese-focused exclusive games, including some titles made by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. Because of this, even if the next Xbox is truly being made with input from Japanese developers, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the console will be a success in Japan.”
Seems no matter what Microsoft does the Xbox brand will never become big in the Japanese market. Even many third party Japanese titles that first released on Xbox 360 eventually came to PlayStation 3 a year after the release of the game with added features. Makes you wonder why anybody seriously thought Scalebound could’ve changed any of that.
“For the most part, the Japanese gaming market has been dominated by Nintendo, Sony, and mobile gaming. Since exclusive games from the creator of Final Fantasy (one of the most popular gaming franchises in Japan’s history) failed to draw Japanese consumers to Xbox, it seems like Microsoft has an uphill battle ahead of itself if it hopes to rectify its past sales failures in the country.”
The Last Story sold about as well on Wii as Blue Dragon & Lost Odyssey sold on Xbox 360, so even name recognition can’t get Mistwalker’s games to sell big on any console. Hell not even Final Fantasy itself can draw a lot of consumers in Japan to the Xbox brand.
At this point there’s not anything Microsoft could do to save the Xbox brand in Asia. The only thing they can do is continue producing the brand in the region to to continue receiving more support from the publishers and developers within the continent.