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Microsoft has confirmed that its next-generation games console is codenamed Project Helix and finally confirmed it will run both Xbox and PC games.
The company shared a short video on social media today showing the Project Helix logo. Additionally, new gaming CEO Asha Sharma is meeting with developers to discuss the new console at GDC next week.
Late last year, rumours began that the new machine would run games from Valve’s Steam store, a console that would also likely come with a higher price tag as former Xbox president Sarah Bond said last year the next Xbox would be a “very premium, very high-end curated experience”.
It marks a distinctly different direction compared to Sony PlayStation, with Bloomberg publishing a piece the other day citing reports that Sony Group Corp. no longer plans to release its big PlayStation 5 games, namely its single-player titles, on PC.
Multiplayer online games such as “Marathon” and “Marvel Tokon” will still be released across multiple platforms, but single-player titles like “Ghost of Yotei” and the upcoming “Marvel’s Wolverine” will remain PS5’s exclusives. Those sources cautioned that things could change in the future.
The reasons for this have been due to several recent PlayStation games not selling well on PC. “Marvel’s Spider-Man 2” is being cited as an example – shifting over 16 million copies on PS5 but less than 800,000 on PC.
There’s also concern that releasing their games on PC risks damaging the console’s brand, whereas keeping them on PlayStation adopts an approach that had been successful for both them and Nintendo in the past.
Xbox’s shift to a device capable of playing PC games has also raised obvious questions as to whether PlayStation will be happy that flagship franchises like “God of War” could run on the next Xbox console.
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