We’re here at the 2026 Game Developers Conference, where Microsoft “VP of Next Generation” Jason Ronald is talking about a topic near and dear to many gamers’ hearts: the future of Xbox. Ronald says the next Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, will have a custom AMD chip with “an order of magnitude increase in raytracing performance” up to and including path tracing.
It will also include a next-gen version of AMD’s FSR upscaling technology that relies on machine learning and includes frame generation that can improve the perceived smoothness of a game by imagining new frames between existing ones. In a post on X, AMD exec Jack Hyunh called it FSR Diamond, saying it’s “designed to be natively optimized for Project Helix and deeply integrated into the GDK.”
But don’t expect that next Xbox soon: Microsoft will begin sending out “alpha versions” of Project Helix to developers in 2027, Ronald revealed here at GDC.
Ronald also confirmed that Xbox and Windows are getting closer together, beyond the fact that Project Helix will play PC games too. “PC is becoming an increasingly important part of Xbox. We’re bringing the best of Xbox to Windows itself,” says Ronald.
Microsoft is bringing the Xbox mode that originally shipped with the Xbox Ally handheld to more Windows computers “to select markets starting in April,” as well as Advanced Shader Delivery, which precompiles shaders so you can download them alongside a game or its updates, instead of having to wait when you launch a title.
Ronald says the Microsoft team’s been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to make the Xbox mode “feel distinctly Xbox,” and stay consistent as you migrate between devices and cloud. He says gamers play 3-5 games at any one time on average, and you should be able to pick up and play whether you’re on console, PC, or cloud.
As we spotted outside the keynote, Microsoft wants game developers to just build once for both Windows and Xbox, instead of building twice for both. It’s creating a unified development environment where “The vast majority of code that your game runs on Xbox is the exact same code that runs on other platforms,” says Ronald.
And while he isn’t promising all games will be this way, Ronald suggests that you won’t have to buy those games multiple times, too: the already-existing Xbox Play Anywhere program lets you buy once and “play on any screen,” he says. The catalog of Xbox Play Anywhere games now has more than 1,500 titles, Ronald says.
As part of the 25th anniversary of Xbox, the game preservation team will also re-release an unspecified number of older Xbox titles under its Game Preservation program, Ronald says. “As one of the largest publishers in the industry, we feel a deep responsibility to preserve games from the past.” And he hints that “some of our most iconic first-party franchises are returning this year.”
Does Game Preservation mean classic Xbox games are coming to PC? An official summary of his remarks makes it sound like that: “As part of our 25th anniversary later this year, we’ll be rolling out new ways to play some of the most iconic games from our past.” Ronald wouldn’t tell us when we asked him outside the venue, only saying that more news would come when Microsoft announces those 25th anniversary plans.
Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
The news follows Microsoft’s recent announcement of the codename for its next-generation console, Project Helix, which the company says will play both console and PC games. That announcement about Helix was made by new Xbox boss Asha Sharma, who took over as Microsoft’s gaming CEO in February. Former Xbox boss Phil Spencer is retiring, and former Xbox president Sarah Bond, who had been seen as a potential successor to Spencer, also announced her departure.
Last year, Bond hinted that the next-generation Xbox would be more like a PC and noted that it would be “a very premium, very high-end curated experience.” In her first memo since taking over Xbox, Sharma promised a “renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console,” and in her post about Helix, Sharma said the console would “lead in performance.” This week, Sharma also posted a picture of the original Xbox prototype, which Microsoft is showing at the GDC Festival of Gaming. We’ve got our own pictures, too.
