Social Feed
Ali Shutler
Microsoft have revealed they’re struggling to make their new Xbox console (known as Project Helix) affordable due to a hardware “crisis”.
Last year, former Xbox boss Sarah Bond said the next-gen Xbox console was going to be a “very premium, very high-end curated experience” which fuelled speculation that Project Helix could cost at least $1000.
However earlier this year, new boss Asha Sharma told developers that she was looking to make the new console “affordable” and partly rolled back a massive price hike for subscription service Xbox Game Pass. Last night, she shared an open letter about the future of Xbox. “It is important to have both optimism and realism as we work to reset the business,” she wrote before talking about making the business more streamlined and focused, which is usually industry speak for laying off staff.
She revealed that Microsoft has spent “over $20 billion on ongoing investments in our content, platform, and hardware subsidy” over the past five years while their annual revenue has “declined nearly half a billion” during that same time. “Going forward, this cannot continue.”
Xbox’s new CEO Asha Sharma has issued an internal memo.
> She also admits that Microsoft has spent more than $20 billion on content, platform, and hardware subsidies over the past five years.
> Despite the massive investment, the gaming division’s annual revenue has still… pic.twitter.com/FXqBRbD8Iu
— Pirat_Nation(@Pirat_Nation) June 10, 2026
Sharma also confirmed that Microsoft is in the middle of a “hardware component crisis.”
Earlier this year it was reported that the PlayStation 6 and the new Xbox consoles could be delayed to 2029 due to “RAMmageddon”, which is what some are calling the scarcity and subsequent price increase of memory chips that are being used in AI data centres.
“When I joined as CEO in February, the price we paid for console storage components was over 2x as high as we paid last fall. These costs have since doubled again. And as we plan for the 2027 holiday season, we expect another significant increase, taking us over 5x the prices we paid only two years earlier. Memory costs have followed a broadly similar trajectory,” said Sharma. “While the entire industry is facing a components crisis, we believe we have been impacted more greatly than many of our peers due to the choices we made over the last half decade. We are currently unable to make as many consoles as players want to buy, and we need a new business model and partnerships for hardware as we remain committed to Helix.”
Speaking to Fortune this week, Sharma said the next generation of Xbox might not be “the most premium, high-performance console” because “we’ve reached a point where it will be hard to imagine that mass audiences can afford thousands of dollars to spend on a console.”
In other news, the first new Spyro The Dragon game in more than 18 years was announced earlier this week – and more could be on the way.
The post Xbox are struggling to make new console ‘Project Helix’ affordable due to hardware “crisis” appeared first on NME.
Continue reading...
0 Replies
·
2 views
Replies
Legacy View
People can do all manner of stuff when they are really angry. It could be anything, but my advice is that no matter what anyone is doing, it is necessary that they don't make moves that they would regret later.
For you, how do you get to handle being really angry?
For you, how do you get to handle being really angry?
9 Replies
·
3 views
like i get wanting to be creative or quirky but why is it always stuff like ‘golden hour vibes’ or ‘rainy day chill’ when half the songs are just midtempo synthwave or whatever cant we just call it what it is. also why are there so many sunset themed playlists that have zero sunset-appropriate songs. im pretty sure ‘bittersweet symphony’ was not written about watching the sun go down. rant over.
1 Replies
·
0 views
How close are you to your siblings? Are you the type who is always reaching out to them at all times? How have you been handling certain situations that relate to them and the challenges that they face?
7 Replies
·
24 views
like you know the one — starts all minor and moody then BAM big major lift halfway through. dont get me wrong, its effective as hell and i still fall for it sometimes, but its so overdone it feels like every newbie producer learned it on day 1 and never let go i get wanting to make people feel something but its like... hey maybe try a different trick once in a while? theres a whole keyboard out there honestly im not saying ban it or anything (its still a banger when done right) but it kinda feels like the musical equivalent of using paprika on everything because you heard its a spice. anyway rant over, whats your most overplayed edm trope?
3 Replies
·
4 views
like im not even talking about the big stuff, just... day-to-day stuff. i was looking at my spotify wrapped and realized how much it knows about my mood based on what i listen to at 2 am vs 2 pm... and then i thought about how much of that kinda info is just floating around for ai to learn from. whats stopping it from knowing me better than i know myself eventually?? im not paranoid or anything (ok maybe a little) but its wild to think about how normal this all feels now. ngl like idk if its just me but im lowkey starting to feel like a walking data point some days... also random tangent but did yall see that thing about how ais are being trained on old internet forums now??? im picturing some bot in 2030 sounding like a 2007 myspace kid and i cant decide if thats hilarious or horrifying anyway thoughts??
8 Replies
·
6 views
it’s 11pm and you’re Hungry... what do you grab from the kitchen?? i always end up debating between salty or sweet anyway share your go-to!!
What’s the best late-night snack?
8 votes total
20 Replies
·
6 views
i was up way too late last night trying to nail this one riff and it hit me how some chords just feel so *nocturnal* while others are just... morning energy, yknow?? idk if its the mood im in or if its something about the sound itself but its wild!! maybe its the lighting in the room or the fact that im listening through headphones half asleep but i cant help thinking some tracks would hit different if you only played em during their ~time~... like imagine a whole playlist calibrated to the hour of the day. actually that might be a fun experiment?? also side note does anyone know any tracks that feel super *dawn-ish* cause im drawing a blank rn and itd be cool to have examples. unless thats just me being weird again lol...
13 Replies
·
5 views
like seriously it feels like every time i hear something new on the radio it’s got this weird overproduced sheen where you can almost hear the focus group notes in the background. “make the drop bigger,” “add a rap verse here for crossover appeal,” “tone down the guitars it’s too edgy.” it’s not even bad music necessarily but it all just feels sanitized? like there’s no risk or personality left. i miss when artists could just put out something weird and unpolished and it was allowed to exist without being focus-tested to death maybe im just old and grumpy but it kinda sucks. …anyone else feel this way or am i alone here
1 Replies
·
0 views
poll sparked by my buddy arguing thats its fine to leech off open networks. i say its sketchy but maybe not outright evil? like, curious what others think cause this feels like one of those gray area things where everyone has a different line.
Is it okay to 'borrow' a neighbor's wifi if they dont password it?
0 votes total
1 Replies
·
0 views
lowkey okay but like why do so many ai demos show it writing resumes or scheduling meetings?? who is out here thinking "wow my life is incomplete without ai doing this for me" LMAO. like yeah sure it could save some time but is that really the pinnacle of what this tech can do? feels like theyre trying to sell us on stuff we dont even want. also why is it always the same examples, cant they think of something slightly more interesting. like, idk maybe im just cynical but it all feels so... uninspired. also whats with the overly polished mockups where everything works perfectly and no one ever has tech issues? we all know real life is way messier than that. cant they show something vaguely realistic for once? nope, hard pass on these demos til they get more creative.
7 Replies
·
2 views