Everything We Know

After taking a look at the and Xbox Next (codenamed Project Helix) individually, we’re going to compare them directly in this article. One thing is for sure: the next console generation is shaping up to be one of the most fascinating in years, and also one of the most unusual. Based on a mix of rumors and official information, Sony and Microsoft are building their new gaming platforms around fundamentally different philosophies. The PlayStation 6 is a traditional home console refined to its purest form: powerful, reasonably affordable, and built for the living room TV. Xbox Next is instead a hybrid console-PC designed to collapse the boundary between console and desktop gaming entirely, and powerful enough to offer a real alternative even to seasoned PC gamers.
Both are powered by AMD’s RDNA 5 GPU architecture (and, presumably, Zen 6 for the CPU, although that’s not official yet) and will share several key technologies. Yet, they could be targeting slightly different audiences this time around.
Pricing
PlayStation 6: The PS5 launched at $499, but the PS6 is unlikely to match that figure. We’ve already seen it with the PlayStation 5 Pro, which launched in late 2024 at a whopping $699, whereas the previous mid-generation console refresh, the PlayStation 4 Pro, had entered the market at $399. Component prices had already gone up considerably before the recent memory and storage shortages. Most credible estimates now place the PlayStation 6 between $500 and $600, with some pushing as high as $700 to $900 depending on the memory situation. MLID has recently argued that even with elevated RAM prices, Sony could still realistically stay below those worst-case scenarios, noting that the PS6 APU is roughly the same die size as the PS5’s, and that other component costs like power supply, chassis, and motherboard could actually be lower.
Xbox Next: Project Helix’s pricing seems likely to be higher. KeplerL2 has placed the console firmly in the over $1,000 range, and MLID’s component-by-component breakdown estimates a bill of materials of around $900 at scale, suggesting a retail price of $999 as an aggressive minimum and $1,200 as the most likely figure. Critically, those estimates predate the current RAM shortage, which has pushed prices even higher. At the same time, Microsoft, with its sheer financial power, could absorb at least some of those markups if it really wanted to boost the chances of its next console.
Hardware Specifications
Confirmed by AMD and/or the manufacturers
GPU Architecture: AMD RDNA 5, confirmed for both platforms by AMD SVP Jack Huynh
Key RDNA 5 Technologies: Three technologies co-developed by AMD and Sony under Project Amethyst are expected to feature in both consoles. That is confirmed for the PS6 by Mark Cerny, and presumed for Project Helix, given that they are core RDNA 5 architectural features, though Microsoft has not explicitly confirmed this.
Radiance Cores: Dedicated hardware for ray and path tracing, taking full control of ray traversal and freeing shader cores for their primary functions
Neural Arrays: GPU compute units grouped to function as a unified AI engine, enabling better upscaling and denoising at lower GPU cost
Universal Compression: A pipeline-level software layer compressing all data types to effectively boost memory bandwidth without additional hardware cost
Dedicated NPU: Both consoles feature a Neural Processing Unit to handle ML-driven tasks, which will be a lot more important in the next console generation.
Leaked and Rumored Specifications
Sources: MLID and KeplerL2. All figures remain unconfirmed until Sony and Microsoft release official devkit specs.
On paper, Xbox Next holds a clear advantage: more compute units, a larger die, and more RAM. However, recent estimates by Digital Foundry (and Kepler L2) suggest that users might not notice much of a difference in actual games. Project Helix will likely offer higher resolution and/or higher settings on average, but it won’t be able to, for example, run a game at 60 frames per second where the PS6 is stuck at 30.
Software and Ecosystem
PlayStation 6 continues Sony’s traditional model: a closed, curated platform with a strong first-party exclusive pipeline. Sony is reportedly even pulling back from its PC ports to reinforce platform exclusivity, a strategy designed to drive PS6 hardware sales further and recapture PS4-era loyalty. Backward compatibility with PS5 titles is expected, though Sony has not yet confirmed the full extent of it.
Xbox Next takes the opposite approach with Project Helix. As rumored for a while, an Xbox console will, for the first time, natively run games from third-party PC storefronts, including Steam and GOG, alongside the Xbox library. As revealed at GDC 2026, Microsoft’s Unified GDK (game development kit) enables developers to ship a single build that targets both the console and Windows PCs, with Microsoft telling developers to build directly for PC and it’ll work on the new console, too. Furthermore, Xbox Mode for Windows 11, announced for a global rollout in April 2026, is essentially a preview of the console’s interface philosophy: a full-screen, controller-optimized experience layered over Windows. At the Game Developers Conference, Xbox’s Jason Ronald also teased that Project Helix will be the most backward-compatible Xbox console ever, supporting all four prior generations, though no details were shared on how that’ll work and which enhancements would be available.
The Handheld Wildcard
One element with no equivalent on the Xbox side is Sony’s heavily rumored Project Canis, a dedicated PlayStation handheld reportedly launching alongside or shortly after the PS6. Leaked specs point to a monolithic APU on TSMC 3nm with 16 RDNA 5 compute units, 4× Zen 6c cores for games, and LPDDR5X memory. It would deliver roughly a quarter of the PS6’s rasterization performance in handheld mode, with stronger-than-expected ray tracing thanks to RDNA 5 efficiency gains. Sony has been updating PS5 developer kits to support “Low Power Mode” with games running on just eight CPU threads, widely interpreted as quiet preparation for handheld hardware.
Microsoft has not announced a first-party handheld equivalent, though the ROG Xbox Ally partnership represents a similar multiscreen ambition via third-party hardware. Up until the first half of 2025, rumors suggested Microsoft had plans to release its own Xbox handheld, but that roadmap was first paused and then axed, allegedly because of AMD’s high minimum-order requirements.
Our own take so far
Based on what we know about the respective consoles, Microsoft (for which Project Helix may well be a “make or break” type of situation for the Xbox console brand) is targeting a different segment: high-end performance and PC compatibility, potentially to lure even some PC gamers, especially if the memory and storage crisis persists. On the other hand, Sony wants to secure the living room after spending a couple of years chasing the PC audience.
This article will be continuously updated as new information becomes available.