Nintendo has the worst hardware, but consistently delivers a small number of really great games you can't play anywhere else. Any game you can play on a Xbox you could also play on a real PC and have a vastly better experience and far more utility. Xbox is just a shitty, ad infested, crippled gaming PC. Playstation is heading in that direction as they lose more exclusives, but at least their hardware is better than Microsoft's so the games look/play better.
Microsoft might as well give up and just sell a bunch of low-mid range gaming PCs in console shaped cases, running windows, ship them with controllers and just brand them as Xboxes. At least for now. Eventually Microsoft wants games as a service, where you buy a dumb terminal/cheap thin client and they stream games you pay excessively high prices for but never actually own to your screen.
What you described with the "might as well give up" is literally the idea behind Project Helix. It's a PC branded as Xbox with some compatibility layers glued in.
Xbox now is a game studio, not a console manufacturer. Look at them through that lens. Doom, Halo, Overwatch, Fallout, whatever else, whether you are into them or not, they own a lot of franchises and those are their core now.
Depending on the hardware, if they let you get to a desktop, and you can run regular windows programs (especially steam and emulators) it might actually be worth it for some people. Especially for households where nobody owns a desktop/laptop, just phones and tablets.
As far as I'm aware so far, the plan is to have Windows boot into "Xbox mode", like the Steam Deck boots into "big picture". And have an exit button to get a normal desktop and other stores/games.
Basically just trying to challenge Valve on the scale of Microsoft's access to hardware and undercutting their price while doing the same thing with a different default store. Also compatibility with actual Xbox games, which won't be a thing on the steam deck.
I'm not sure what the point of vibe reading is when the announcement[1] is right there and explicitly calls out third party store support, being able to play "your PC games", and the fact that the device will run Windows. Could they backtrack on all this? Maybe, but it seems a bit too late for that.
The only thing I'm not certain of is the exact shape of the "exit button". It could be a "desktop app" like Windows 8 had, instead. Could be some way to add third party games to the Xbox launcher UI. Barely relevant, anyway.
> Could they backtrack on all this? Maybe, but it seems a bit too late for that.
So we're talking about taking a PC, which is a general purpose gaming platform able to use multiple stores equally, and giving Microsoft control over what can and can't run on it?
Of course Microsoft would backtrack, exactly as soon as the financial benefit to them outweighs the reputational cost.
They've been salivating over recurring revenue ever since Apple pivoted their model into leveraging hardware locking to privilege first party services.
"Giving Microsoft control" is a strange idea. If you are a DOS/Windows user (and to a large extent even if you aren't), then Microsoft was in control of the PC since the platform's inception and this doesn't change anything. Helix is a PC. Running an x86_64 CPU. It runs Windows (with some extra fluff that runs on boot), and someone will put some Linux or other on it eventually.
When I was talking about backtracking, I meant doing so before the release of the project, which would be reputation damage with no profit. And if it's out, as specified, then there's not really any backtracking to speak of anymore.
autoexec · · focus · HN ↗
Nintendo has the worst hardware, but consistently delivers a small number of really great games you can't play anywhere else. Any game you can play on a Xbox you could also play on a real PC and have a vastly better experience and far more utility. Xbox is just a shitty, ad infested, crippled gaming PC. Playstation is heading in that direction as they lose more exclusives, but at least their hardware is better than Microsoft's so the games look/play better.
Microsoft might as well give up and just sell a bunch of low-mid range gaming PCs in console shaped cases, running windows, ship them with controllers and just brand them as Xboxes. At least for now. Eventually Microsoft wants games as a service, where you buy a dumb terminal/cheap thin client and they stream games you pay excessively high prices for but never actually own to your screen.
andOlga · · focus · HN ↗
Xbox now is a game studio, not a console manufacturer. Look at them through that lens. Doom, Halo, Overwatch, Fallout, whatever else, whether you are into them or not, they own a lot of franchises and those are their core now.
autoexec · · focus · HN ↗
andOlga · · focus · HN ↗
Basically just trying to challenge Valve on the scale of Microsoft's access to hardware and undercutting their price while doing the same thing with a different default store. Also compatibility with actual Xbox games, which won't be a thing on the steam deck.
ethbr1 · · focus · HN ↗
Sure, because that seems like a thing current Microsoft would do for their users...
andOlga · · focus · HN ↗
The only thing I'm not certain of is the exact shape of the "exit button". It could be a "desktop app" like Windows 8 had, instead. Could be some way to add third party games to the Xbox launcher UI. Barely relevant, anyway.
[1]: <a href="https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/03/11/project-helix-building-next-generation-of-xbox/" rel="nofollow">https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/03/11/project-helix-buildin...
ethbr1 · · focus · HN ↗
So we're talking about taking a PC, which is a general purpose gaming platform able to use multiple stores equally, and giving Microsoft control over what can and can't run on it?
Of course Microsoft would backtrack, exactly as soon as the financial benefit to them outweighs the reputational cost.
They've been salivating over recurring revenue ever since Apple pivoted their model into leveraging hardware locking to privilege first party services.
andOlga · · focus · HN ↗
When I was talking about backtracking, I meant doing so before the release of the project, which would be reputation damage with no profit. And if it's out, as specified, then there's not really any backtracking to speak of anymore.