The next generation of gaming consoles is shaping up to be a horrifyingly expensive affair, with a new report claiming that Microsoft’s next Xbox could cost between $1,200 and $1,800.
The Xbox claim comes from a substantial new investigation by Fortune, which has been digging into the changes happening at Microsoft’s gaming division under its new boss, Asha Sharma. The report, written by Sebastian Herrera, draws on interviews with current and former Xbox employees as well as discussions with Sharma and other senior executives, which also led to use learning that Game Pass will apparently undergo some huge changes.
Buried within the report is this rather alarming nugget about Microsoft’s next-generation console, currently known as Project Helix:
“the price of the Helix console has internally been projected to cost consumers between $1,200 and $1,800, unless Microsoft decides to subsidize the cost.”
Well, bloody hell. Guess I’ll have to open my piggy bank.
There are some important caveats here. For starters, this is reportedly an internal projection, not a confirmed retail price. Microsoft could ultimately choose to subsidise the console, absorbing some of the manufacturing cost to bring the price down. That’s the traditional method of selling consoles, after all. There’s also plenty of time for component prices, specifications and manufacturing plans to change before the machine actually launches. Although at the rate things are going, all that’s going to happen is it becomes even more expensive.
Microsoft has been positioning Project Helix as a hybrid between an Xbox and a gaming PC, with plans to support both Xbox and PC games. The idea of having access to a wider PC library while retaining the simplicity of a console is certainly interesting, and it could give Microsoft something genuinely different to offer compared with PlayStation. Unless the rumours are true and PlayStation is going to launch a handheld device.
Whether customers would be willing to spend that sort of money on it is another matter entirely.
Fortune also claims that Sharma is targeting the holiday season of 2028 for the next Xbox console, with a next-generation handheld apparently planned for the holidays in 2027.
Of course, Microsoft isn’t the only company facing the prospect of a much more expensive generation of gaming hardware. Just two days before Fortune’s report, Video Games Chronicle reported some alarming claims about the PlayStation 6 from hardware insider KeplerL2, who has a history of accurately reporting information about AMD hardware.
According to KeplerL2, the PS6’s RAM and NAND storage alone could now cost Sony more than $680 per console. That’s before accounting for the processor, cooling system, controller, motherboard and all the other bits and pieces needed to build the thing.
KeplarL2 had previously estimated the PS6’s overall bill of materials at roughly $960, leading to speculation that Sony could be looking at a retail price exceeding $1,000 if it doesn’t want to sell the hardware at a loss.
Naturally, those figures are estimates rather than confirmed manufacturing costs, and Sony hasn’t announced the PS6’s specifications or pricing. It’s also worth bearing in mind that the earlier manufacturing estimate and the latest memory-cost claim were made at different times, so they shouldn’t simply be added together.
However, the suggestion that the PS6 could break the thousand-dollar barrier isn’t coming exclusively from hardware leakers.
Earlier this year, industry analyst Joost van Dreunen, CEO of Aldora, warned that next-generation consoles could launch in 2028 with prices north of $1,000 becoming the starting point. Other analysts have been mildly more optimistic, suggesting that Sony and Microsoft could potentially keep their standard models below that threshold while charging considerably more for premium machines.
For the moment, none of these figures should be treated as confirmed prices. Microsoft’s reported $1,200–$1,800 range is an internal projection, while the PS6 figures are based on insider estimates and industry analysis. But it’s increasingly difficult to ignore the direction things seem to be heading.
We’ve already watched console prices climb throughout the current generation, and the suggestion that we might soon be spending $1,000 or more just to get through the door isn’t exactly encouraging. As much as I love gaming, I can see me having to skip the next-generation of console.
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