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Asha Sharma: Next Xbox Project Name: "Helix" - Will 'lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games'

Xbox series prices were raised to not be sold at a loss. Since MS never moved production out of China until recently, and didn't stock up pre-tariff like Sony did, their per unit cost is much higher due to lower economies of scale, and tariffs. Also the digital Xsx is $549 MSRP.

This isn't true? The price increases lined up with the 30% tariffs at the time. In Europe and other territories the price hike was more mild.

5M is my guess

Closer to 500k-1m…
 
The PS5 Pro is $750 right now. How much do you think a PS6 that is at least 2x better across the board will cost?
Pro consoles are sold at a profit, launch consoles are initially sold at a loss. Not only that but Sony can see the sales and Pro isn't doing that great compared to the regular PS5 and the reason for that is price.
 
Depends if it plays all PC games and lets say it does indeed have around the power equal to a current 5080 PC

Yep. Lots of moving targets in the PC lane vs consoles. What's the GPU market look like when this thing launches? What kind of access does this "console" actually give to PC gamers? PC gamers are fickle. Doesn't take much for them to nope out. MS pretty much has to knock this thing out of the park while still giving the simplicity that console gamers expect.

Being all things to all people isn't easy.
 
More shader engines than PS6
Yeah 4 SE vs 3
1440p isn't slightly higher, it's double the pixels(which could also double the framerate in some gpu limited cases).
In context it's a bigger delta than ps4 to xb1, and that itself was biggest in-gen delta since the original xbox.
1440p is 77% more pixels not double, and with modern AI upscaling it's hard to tell the difference in most scenarios.
Question is if the npu can help with graphic task, like fsr.
according to copilot( dont know if actually correct):

Leaks about "Xbox Magnus" and "Project Helix" describe an NPU with ~110 TOPS of AI compute. That's a huge jump compared to current consoles and is explicitly positioned as a core part of Microsoft's next‑gen strategy.

NPUs excel at:

  • AI upscaling / super‑resolution
  • AI frame generation
  • AI denoising (including ray‑tracing denoisers)
  • Animation & physics prediction
  • Latency reduction techniques
These are the same kinds of tasks NVIDIA offloads to Tensor Cores and AMD is beginning to offload to AI accelerators.

How it could help with ray tracing

The NPU won't do ray tracing itself — that's still handled by dedicated RT hardware in the GPU (likely AMD UDNA-based).

But it can help in these ways:

1. AI Ray-Tracing Denoising

Ray tracing requires heavy denoising.An NPU can run advanced neural denoisers that:

  • Clean up noisy RT samples faster
  • Allow fewer rays per pixel, reducing GPU load
  • Improve RT quality at the same performance level

2. AI-based RT reconstruction

Similar to NVIDIA's DLSS Ray Reconstruction, an NPU could:

  • Rebuild missing ray data
  • Improve reflections, GI, and shadows
  • Reduce artifacts from low-sample RT
  • 3. Frame generation for RT modes

    RT modes are expensive.AI frame generation can:
    • Double perceived framerate
    • Make RT modes more playable
    • Reduce the need for aggressive resolution cuts
NPU is for Copilot BS not anything to do with upscaling/framegen/denoising.
 
Can't see many swapping platforms because of a power difference, it's a waste of time arguing about that, it's not going to matter.

Those who have a big library on PlayStation are going to get PS6.

Those who have a big library on Xbox are going to get Helix.

That's it.

Then there will be talk about features. PC stores, emulators, modding. Depending how interested you are in that it could make a difference. But Steam Machine is first on the ball there.
Lets see how this power difference will function in real applications, xbox will have to deal with Windows PC game codes and its (non)optimization hassles meanwhile ps6 will probably be the lead platform to a lot of developers, its a situation we didnt had before between "consoles" of similar or close power. Personally I think a 25% advantage is meaningless because of the lack of directly optimization, time will tell.
 
Lets see how this power difference will function in real applications, xbox will have to deal with Windows PC game codes and its (non)optimization hassles meanwhile ps6 will probably be the lead platform to a lot of developers, its a situation we didnt had before between "consoles" of similar or close power. Personally I think a 25% advantage is meaningless because of the lack of directly optimization, time will tell.
That was also my hunch but Kepler stated that NPU takes care of the AI bloatware and reserved system resources take care of Windows so basically all remaining specs are still noticeably better than PS6 (how much specifically, depends on the CPU/GPU clock speeds)
 
How many units of a $1200 console do you see selling?

A $1200 hybrid that plays all of one's Xbox library, including BC, and also PC games with the power of a 5080.

vince-mcmahon-intrigued.gif
 
That was also my hunch but Kepler stated that NPU takes care of the AI bloatware and reserved system resources take care of Windows so basically all remaining specs are still noticeably better than PS6 (how much specifically, depends on the CPU/GPU clock speeds)
Not really because nothing of this resolves the fact that most if not all games will not be specifically develop and optimized for this specifc hardware. Consoles always punch above their weightclass because of direct development and optimization, this will *probably* not be avaible in the XboxPc that will run mostly just PC games, it will be pure hardware brutforce. Thats why I dont think 25% will make a difference.. if it was 25% with Nvidia hardware , yep big time, but similar AMD architecture? Yeah I dont see it. But we have to see in practice, its all speculation now.
 
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I'm still waiting for the explanation for what exactly BC ist needed when you have pretty much every single Xbox Game on PC anyway.

The main thing is my owned library, I own around 90~ Xbox 360 BC games on my account, not even including anything from XBO onward.
 
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1440p is 77% more pixels not double
Closer to double than 30%.
Difference being hard to spot isn't the point, you either have performance for it or not.
None of the spec differences you or others talked about line up anywhere close to that, so either those specs are bunk or the output delta is.

Also, 80% faster painting pixels can be enough to get reasonably good 2x framerate(especially with VRR and DRS).
 
Closer to double than 30%.
Difference being hard to spot isn't the point, you either have performance for it or not.
None of the spec differences you or others talked about line up anywhere close to that, so either those specs are bunk or the output delta is.

Also, 80% faster painting pixels can be enough to get reasonably good 2x framerate(especially with VRR and DRS).
You know that HW utilization drops with lower resolutions right? Going from 30 FPS to 60 or 60 FPS to 120 requires 2x GPU power, going from 1080p to 1440p does not actually require 77% more GPU power.
 
Not really because nothing of this resolves the fact that most if not all games will not be specifically develop and optimized for this specifc hardware. Consoles always punch above their weightclass because of direct development and optimization, this will *probably* not be avaible in the XboxPc that will run mostly just PC games, it will be pure hardware brutforce. Thats why I dont think 25% will make a difference.. if it was 25% with Nvidia hardware , yep big time, but similar AMD architecture? Yeah I dont see it. But we have to see in practice, its all speculation now.
You basically stated what i feel about the 25% hardware strength increase. it would get eaten up by inefficiencies. Xbox has no choice because they no longer have enough hardware base to entice 3rd parties from porting their games properly. So between getting reliable but badly optimised PC ports or not getting any 3rd party ports at all, they pick the less bad option.
 
Not really because nothing of this resolves the fact that most if not all games will not be specifically develop and optimized for this specifc hardware. Consoles always punch above their weightclass because of direct development and optimization, this will *probably* not be avaible in the XboxPc that will run mostly just PC games, it will be pure hardware brutforce. Thats why I dont think 25% will make a difference.. if it was 25% with Nvidia hardware , yep big time, but similar AMD architecture? Yeah I dont see it. But we have to see in practice, its all speculation now.
Magnus has the same gaming related HW as PS6, only better. PC related things are accounted for with dedicated hardware. I don't think there are some exotic optimization possibilities specific to PS6. Higher clocks are the only thing PS6 can do to mitigate the power delta.
 
Magnus has the same gaming related HW as PS6, only better. PC related things are accounted for with dedicated hardware. I don't think there are some exotic optimization possibilities specific to PS6. Higher clocks are the only thing PS6 can do to mitigate the power delta.
I think its pretty known and standard that directly optimization is better and brings advantage over pure similar brute force on a generic code made for run on a huge broad number of devices. So no point in debating this...Ill rest here
 
Yeah 4 SE vs 3

1440p is 77% more pixels not double, and with modern AI upscaling it's hard to tell the difference in most scenarios.

NPU is for Copilot BS not anything to do with upscaling/framegen/denoising.
That does not need 100 tops, 40 would be more than enough.
 
I think its pretty known and standard that directly optimization is better and brings advantage over pure similar brute force on a generic code made for run on a huge broad number of devices. So no point in debating this...Ill rest here
There is some merit to your argument, I just don't think it would do much in terms of the power delta. However, I was also expecting games to run better on SX than PS5, so what do I know :)
 
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I'm still waiting for the explanation for what exactly BC ist needed when you have pretty much every single Xbox Game on PC anyway.
Because Microsoft could not simply offer the pc games licence of those games to players for free if they are third or even second party.
 
Today we should be getting some information, right? I wonder if they'll do the whole visual reveal of the hardware in a stream of their own this or next year or at this TGA.
 
40 is the current one for Windows 11
I have to ask again, what is your source for this:

"According to leaked information, Windows 12, codenamed "Hudson Valley Next", will require a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) with at least 40 TOPS of compute power to run its AI features. The OS is expected to launch in 2026."
 
Genuinely curious how many units do you see the Xbox Helix hardware selling?

How many units of a $1200 console do you see selling?

Depends if it plays all PC games and lets say it does indeed have around the power equal to a current 5080 PC

Well we honestly have no idea what final performance or pricing will be. Im not even going to act like i can predict this stuff. Im sure it will sell more than 5 million units... but id be surprised if it got up to where current sales figures are unless they pull something aggressive and crazy out of their butts which I am skeptical of.

I was more saying wrong to the claim that people are already migrating to other systems off xbox. Makes it sound like a mass exodus which i doubt is happening.

People seem to be very entrenched in their ecosystems at this point. If that were truly happening then I feel like Microsoft definitely wouldn't bother with hardware regardless of the R&D spend they're already balls deep in.

I have over 600 xbox games and over 300 Playstation games. Im personally not migrating anythig anywhere.

Sure there may be people that own like 20 games (madden,MLB, cod,fortnite) that are looking at moving but they're not really big spenders in the first place.
 
Unless you think this box is gonna sell as much as the Series console then your assertion is already wrong.
There will absolutely be a migration of Xbox users to others platforms. That Steam, and especially Playstation are targeting growth coming from.
This gets said a lot but what's the upside for an Xbox fan to move over to the PlayStation ecosystem?
This is big move to take if your investment sits on Xbox. It's basically a reset of the hobby.
There are some ports from Xbox now but nothing they already own will be moved over and exclusives are also rare now compared to previous generations. I don't think that move will be common.

Through Helix Xbox fans can keep their old games through BC and Gamepass subs and saves and achievements and can discover Steam and other PC stores while their old investments are intact. It's going to be more common, it's the natural way forward.
I've done the swap to PC and while bc isn't there it's already smoooooth. As said going to PC now feels like an expansion, your account is there and all your achievements and many games. MS should've done this transition sooner.
 
"Console optimization" ain't the same as it used to be. The difference between consoles and PC's is much less than it was 20 years ago.
 
Well we honestly have no idea what final performance or pricing will be. Im not even going to act like i can predict this stuff. Im sure it will sell more than 5 million units... but id be surprised if it got up to where current sales figures are unless they pull something aggressive and crazy out of their butts which I am skeptical of.

I was more saying wrong to the claim that people are already migrating to other systems off xbox. Makes it sound like a mass exodus which i doubt is happening.

People seem to be very entrenched in their ecosystems at this point. If that were truly happening then I feel like Microsoft definitely wouldn't bother with hardware regardless of the R&D spend they're already balls deep in.

I have over 600 xbox games and over 300 Playstation games. Im personally not migrating anythig anywhere.

Sure there may be people that own like 20 games (madden,MLB, cod,fortnite) that are looking at moving but they're not really big spenders in the first place.
All does indeed revolve around pricing
 
Because Microsoft could not simply offer the pc games licence of those games to players for free if they are third or even second party.
Just buy a steamkey for 5 bucks and play a better version of the game. Not like old Xbox games are worth anything anyway.
 
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