Xbox CEO Asha Sharma Confirms "Family of Devices" for 10th Console Generation in Microsoft Town Hall Meeting

Speaking to Xbox employees in an internal town hall meeting, as reported by Windows Central, CEO Asha Sharma underlined that its upcoming Project Helix next-gen console was not one box, but a "family of devices".

That echoes some earlier reporting, which suggested that we would see multiple Helix consoles that blur the line between traditional console and PC, including those made by Microsoft itself and those made by third parties, with the potential for additional Helix devices in additional form factors, like gaming handhelds. Sharma continued along similar lines:

"We will certainly have a great console first, but we also know that many players will be on the go. There are some things that we are the best in the world to manufacture, and there are other things that we will partner on. So, we will be sharing more about that as our plans develop. The operating system is starting to look really good. We've very excited about this."

The rest of the town hall makes for interesting reading, with Sharma touching on the need to make Game Pass "more flexible", grow Battle.net as a curated platform, and make it easier for developers to ship their games on Series X/S, Helix and PC - a long-reported pain point for Xbox titles versus their PlayStation equivalents.

These all sound like reasonable goals, but it's clear that the Xbox business is very much in flux. While we've welcomed initiatives like the disc-to-digital programme and Xbox back-compat for PC, Microsoft has also ripped and torn its game studios with thousands of layoffs and significant restructuring. The latter has seen Activision take the reins on Halo, Bethesda take over all Fallout development and Forza's formerly separate Playground Games and Turn 10 Interactive studios merge into a single entity.

I'm not sure these improvements - and a revamped Xbox Elite Series 3 controller - are enough to keep the Xbox business above water.