The recently announced next-gen Project Helix Xbox – with its hybrid PC/console configuration – will not be a typical living room gaming machine. As such, it represents a massive opportunity for Microsoft to offer something tangibly new and different to the traditional console customer. The flip side of that, though, is that it also means that the company’s messaging – to both core and casual gamers alike – has to be absolutely on point to avoid confusion and, potentially, chaos. I bring this up because unfortunately, Xbox’s messaging over the past generation and a half – basically, dating back to the Xbox One debacle – has been inconsistent at best.
What do I mean by that? Quite simply, it has seemed like every time Team Xbox has gotten a little bit of positive momentum going for it, those tailwinds quickly get undone by a completely unforced error, be it consumer un-friendly policy changes, hardware or software price increases, layoffs, studio closures, or some other bit of other untimely bad news. As longtime listeners of IGN’s Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, have heard all too often, I have a name for this phenomenon: stepping on a rake.
But this isn’t a doom-and-gloom Xbox article. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think Project Helix (which, by the way, would work great as its actual name: Xbox Helix. I also like the following community suggestions: Xbox Duo, Xbox Fusion, and just Xbox) is a golden opportunity for Xbox to redefine itself. Sony, according to a recent report, is closing ranks and abandoning its months-or-years-later forays into PC gaming and instead doubling down on the console experience. Nintendo, almost certainly, is never in a million years going to even consider publishing any of its games on PC. That leaves Microsoft as the lone console maker embracing the growing PC market. And this is where I remind you that the console market isn’t growing – just ask Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft.
Project Helix is a golden opportunity for Xbox to redefine itself.
And therein lies the challenge. Microsoft can’t message Helix like a traditional console, because it isn’t one. The final design may look like a typical set-top, video game-playing box, but it’s presumably going to be capable of a lot more. As such, it’s vital that the Xbox team gets the key strengths of the new box across to core gamers to reignite their enthusiasm for the brand – but they also need to make sure casual gamers aren’t left confused.
For instance, assuming the rumors are true and Helix can indeed connect to Steam and other PC storefronts, its most obvious strength will also be, by far, its biggest one: it will be able to play tens of thousands more games than the PlayStation 5 or the future PlayStation 6. Like, it won’t even be a contest. If Microsoft pulls it off, Helix will simply be the place to play the most games, both past and present. Period. End of sentence.
To this end, new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma and her Xbox team should consider reviewing a trilogy of events that changed Xbox forever: the Xbox One reveal from May 2013, Xbox’s E3 2013 press conference from a month later, and PlayStation’s E3 2013 press conference that took place 48 hours after that. Because those six weeks are when Xbox lost its way, messaging-wise. Sharma can bring fresh eyes (and, admittedly, 20/20 hindsight) to those events, and hopefully use them to help inform her perspective as she aims to guide Xbox into its next generation, perhaps as soon as next year.
The obvious takeaway from Xbox’s grim 2013 is, obviously, to not repeat the same messaging mistakes (here’s a nickel’s worth of free advice for step one: don’t give the Helix a name that is easily morphed into an easily mocked abbreviation or shorthand like “Xbone”). Sharma might also see what I’ve seen in the years since the Xbox One launch: that Microsoft has spent the bulk of that time on its back heels, reacting to the rest of the industry as well as what Xbox customers have been saying or feeling about the brand, rather than proactively professing Xbox’s strengths from a position of confidence. Xbox needs to, as the kids would put it, say it with your whole chest.
While we don’t yet know any concrete details about Helix and thus what other cool stuff it’ll have that will be worth boasting about – like Quick Resume was on the Xbox Series, for example – let’s get back to the clarity needed in selling a console/PC hybrid. Microsoft will be pitching this to both console gamers and PC gamers, presumably, and thus unique messaging will be necessary for each group. For console gamers, it’s all about Helix being completely additive to your living room gaming experience – presumably with no downside. Even if a player chooses to never make a Steam account or ever play a PC game, the gargantuan catalog of PC games from the past 20 years will nevertheless be at your fingertips, just a few button presses away.
I’d also lean hard into the value aspect of PC gaming as well, namely: Steam sales. There is essentially always a great deal to be had on a great game on PC, making Helix the perfect living-room gaming device for any budget; it won’t just be about the high-priced first-party releases, like the ones that Sony will be selling and banking on for PS6.
On the console side of things, the good news is that a steady flow of awesome games are finally here, there are plenty more coming, and they’re probably not going to stop – which is a sentence I’m not sure I’d ever get to type again after the Xbox 360 generation. I’ve hammered on this point before in other articles and podcasts, but it’s worth repeating to give Microsoft the credit it deserves: in the past 18 months, Microsoft has published STALKER 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and 7, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Avowed, South of Midnight, Doom: The Dark Ages, Ninja Gaiden 4, Keeper, Grounded 2, and The Outer Worlds 2. And this year, while it’s entirely possible that the once-in-a-blue-moon world-eating juggernaut named Grand Theft Auto 6 might cause at least one of these to bump into 2027, this is Xbox’s 2026 lineup: Forza Horizon 6, Fable, Gears of War: E-Day, Minecraft Dungeons 2, and Halo: Campaign Evolved. Oh, and whatever this year’s Call of Duty game is (and given that we’re overdue for it to be Infinity Ward’s turn, we’re likely getting Modern Warfare 4).
So the games are there, but what still needs clarity heading into the Helix generation are 1) Game Pass’s affordability/value proposition, and 2) exclusivity. On item number one, Microsoft torched a lot of goodwill towards Game Pass that had been built up over years by greedily raising the price by 50 freakin’ percent last year, from $20 per month to $30 per month for the Ultimate tier that includes day-one access to all new first-party releases. Skipping what was probably an inevitable pit stop of $25 to go straight to $30 when the cost of basic necessities in everyone’s lives was also skyrocketing was just, well, shitty. I’m not naive enough to believe that a trillion-dollar corporation is going to publicly apologize and lower prices back down to where they were, but what they can do that I think would meaningfully go a long way towards redirecting Microsoft’s messaging back in a positive direction would be to rework the middle, $15-per-month Premium tier. I propose an Audible-like voucher system that lets me earn at least one day-one new release download for every three months I’m subscribed, stackable over the course of the year so that I’ve got at least a few big Fall releases I can play through my Premium sub on release day. It would cost Microsoft nothing to do this, still leave room for the Ultimate tier to reel in the gamers who want day-one access to everything, and refocus the Game Pass messaging on what awesome value it provides to gamers rather than the current (deserved) narrative of it pricing out many players.
If new Xbox boss Asha Sharma wants to “return to Xbox,” she’s got to give gamers a reason to buy a Helix rather than just playing all of Microsoft’s stuff on PS6.
And as far as clarity on exclusivity goes, Microsoft has left gamers confused and loyal Xbox fans unhappy in recent years. Some games are exclusive for a year (like Avowed and South of Midnight), some are exclusive for less time than that (Indiana Jones and the Great Circle), and some are available on PS5 on day one (Halo: Campaign Evolved). For no better evidence of the justifiable confusion around where Microsoft stands on exclusivity, look at Microsoft’s most consistently awesome first-party developer: Playground Games. That studio has two games scheduled to ship this year, with one of them a timed Xbox exclusive (Forza Horizon 6) and the other a multiplatform release right out of the gate (Fable). Make it make sense! It’s probably too late for the exclusivity toothpaste to be put completely back in the tube, but if Sharma wants to “return to Xbox,” to use her words, she’s got to give gamers a reason to buy a Helix rather than just playing all of Microsoft’s stuff on PS6. A clear, across-the-board one-year console exclusivity window on everything (except Call of Duty, which Microsoft had to promise to keep multiplatform in order to help convince regulators to approve its $69 billion acquisition of Activision-Blizzard) would get plenty of people back on board the Xbox train. PC gamers need not worry, as Helix is also a PC and every game will show up there at launch. But console? What, you’re telling me that scores of gamers wouldn’t seriously consider picking up an Xbox if The Elder Scrolls VI, like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion before it, didn’t show up on PlayStation for a year?
Whatever Sharma decides to do with the next generation of Xbox, my point is that she must be clear, decisive, and proactive. The opportunity for Project Helix is there. Here’s hoping Microsoft will take it.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
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