The PlayStation 6 and the Xbox Project Helix are still rumored to land in the same window…
At the Game Developers Conference, Jason Ronald, Xbox’s vice president of next generation, also presented an update on the new Xbox hardware codenamed Project Helix (which we covered in more detail in today’s news). It has now been confirmed that alpha versions of the Project Helix development kits will only reach developers in 2027, sparking concerns about when the next-generation hardware will actually launch. If developers can only start working on Project Helix next year, when do players get their hands on it at the earliest? 2028? 2030?
Kepler_L2: both Xbox and PS6 are still in track for 2027 holiday
According to the well-known AMD leaker Kepler_L2, however, the plans for Xbox Project Helix and Sony’s PlayStation 6 are not built around making players wait that long. Instead, the target is still Christmas 2027 for both devices, as the insider has claimed before. What’s more, the rumor also suggests a PlayStation handheld is slated for roughly the same period. The informant didn’t add further details beyond reiterating that all three devices are still aiming for that window, but at least it’s a signal that next-gen hardware isn’t slipping by two or three years.
Release plans can change in an instant, and while it’s very likely that both Sony and Microsoft currently intend to ship their consoles for the 2027 holiday season again within weeks – or even days – of each other, it’s still only March 2026. There’s a long road ahead, and a lot has to go right for these devices to hit that planned window. With the ongoing memory crunch and tariff problems in the mix, it’s hard to treat any schedule as locked.
Hopefully Kepler_L2 is right, though. It would be exciting to stand at the start of a new generation again. Of course, the price will be brutal – especially for Project Helix, since it’s expected to be a console-PC hybrid, meaning we should be ready to dig deep.
Source: WCCFTech
