Last summer, we here at Ars made the argument that the company’s next Xbox console should give up the walled garden approach and just run Windows already. Now, newly named Microsoft Executive Vice President for Gaming Asha Sharma has strongly hinted that this is indeed the direction Microsoft is going, saying its next-generation console will “play your Xbox and PC games.”
In a social media post Thursday afternoon, Sharma said that “our commitment to the return of Xbox” would include a new console codenamed Project Helix that “will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games.” Sharma said she would be discussing that commitment and that console itself with developers and partners at her first Game Developers Conference next week.
Sharma’s statement leaves a little wiggle room for Project Helix to be something other than a full-fledged Windows-based living room gaming box. The coming console’s access to PC games could be limited to Microsoft’s existing streaming solution via PC Game Pass, for instance, or to games designed for Microsoft’s own Xbox-branded PC SDK and the PC Xbox app.
Still, a plain reading of Sharma’s statement suggests that Microsoft is getting ready to open up its next console to a complete Windows installation, with the ability to play tens of thousands of existing PC games. That doesn’t come as a complete shock, considering that Microsoft already used the Xbox name for last year’s Windows-based ROG Xbox Ally (and its somewhat console-esque full-screen “Xbox Experience”). Microsoft has also been slowly reducing the number of games that are fully exclusive to Xbox consoles, lowering the value of a walled-off console platform (Sony, meanwhile, pulled back this week from its recent trend of releasing first-party titles on PC as well). Meanwhile, Valve’s coming Steam Machine is threatening to bring Windows-free PC gaming to living rooms everywhere in the near future.
Rumors of a Windows-based Xbox console have been floating around for a while, too. Windows Central reported last October that Microsoft’s next console would run a TV-optimized version of “full-bore Windows,” with the option to stay inside a separate “Xbox ecosystem” if players choose (much like SteamOS exists alongside base Linux on the Steam Deck). Earlier this month, the site suggested that the console could come out next year in various tiers along the price/power spectrum.
The devil, as always, will come in the details. How smoothly will living room players be able to manage games across multiple PC launchers and store platforms? How smoothly will the console adapt games designed explicitly for a keyboard and mouse to a living room setting? How easily will it play games designed for older versions of Windows (along with older Xbox consoles)?
We’ll keep an eye out for these kinds of details as they inevitably drip out in the months leading up to Project Helix’s eventual launch. For now, though, we have the strongest indication yet that Microsoft wants to merge its Xbox and Windows gaming ecosystems for good.
