Xbox claims Project Helix alpha dev kits should be ready to ship in 2027

Ever since Asha Sharma's appointment to CEO of Xbox, Microsoft's gaming division has aggressively promised an exciting new era for the brand.

The Game Developer Conference (GDC 2026) is going down in San Francisco, California this weekend, and with it comes all sorts of news and discussions from publishers and developer studios across the world. Xbox has been loud lately with a change in management and the announcement of its next generation console, Project Helix. Many thought that Xbox would likely take a long time to actually spin up concrete details for Project Helix, but it looks like Xbox is set to let developers get their hands on alpha dev kits in 2027.

That comes from an Xbox Wire post about GDC, written by Xbox Vice President of Next Generation Jason Ronald. There, Ronald revealed some key details about Project Helix, namely that Xbox plans “to ship alpha versions of the hardware to developers beginning in 2027.” He also shared that a custom AMD chip will be powering the new console.

With AMD under the hood and development kits getting ready for next year, Xbox seems to be saying it’s farther along on its new generation of console than we might have thought. It seemed ambitious to announce Project Helix in the midst of a memory shortage, but with new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma just recently having taken the helm amid the departure of former CEO Phil Spencer and President Sarah Bond, Xbox has a lot to prove in showing fans and gamers that the future of the brand looks bright.

If Xbox can stay on schedule with Project Helix in 2027, the gaming console scene could get interesting in the next couple years if it wasn’t ready with last year’s launch of the Switch 2. Stay tuned to the Xbox topic for more news and updates.

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