At the GDC Festival of Gaming last week, Microsoft delved further into the details of its Xbox Series X successor, codenamed Project Helix.
First unveiled by new Xbox boss Asha Sharma after the company announced the retirement of longtime Microsoft Gaming chief Phil Spencer and Xbox president Sarah Bond’s departure, Project Helix won’t reach alpha status, the point at which it ships to game developers, until 2027.
It’s an indication that the replenishment of the Xbox console cycle, following the 2020 launch of its Series X systems, is likely to take a substantial amount of time.
The next era of Xbox could certainly benefit from the extra planning.
Microsoft Gaming, which houses hardware, Game Pass and three separate publishing groups, has seen revenue consistently fall in its holiday quarter since the company’s deal to acquire Call of Duty giant Activision Blizzard for $75.4 billion closed in October 2023.
As of the quarter ending December 2025, the company’s gaming revenue pulls in little more than LinkedIn, which continues to hit its own revenue milestones a decade after Microsoft first acquired the professional networking platform.
Given that holiday quarters are traditionally the best for any gaming company, especially in the console ecosystem, it’s a troubling sign that Xbox revenue has fallen year over year since the Activision deal was meant to bolster gaming and provide a dependable bed of earnings for many expensive AAA titles developed in that ecosystem.
Likewise, steady rounds of layoffs, studio closures and game cancellations in the years since further underscore the troubling lack of growth on display. Consequently, Sony’s competing PlayStation 5 systems have massively outsold Xbox Series X, and Microsoft continues to open much of the new and existing Xbox library to PlayStation gamers.
It’s no secret that console gaming and AAA titles have struggled to maintain engagement in the era of free-to-play forever games and game-derived experiences including Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft, the last of which is part of Microsoft Gaming.
Call of Duty in particular took a massive hit in 2025, with Black Ops 7 finishing fifth in top U.S. sales for the year as EA’s Battlefield 6 took the top sales position, per Circana.
Annual Call of Duty games have almost always been the top seller in the console and PC market since 2009, second only to Grand Theft Auto 5, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Hogwarts Legacy in 2013, 2018 and 2023, respectively.
But last year, NBA 2K26, Borderlands 4 and Monster Hunter Wilds all sold better than the latest Call of Duty, alongside Battlefield 6.
Outside of gaming, Microsoft IP has surged in the entertainment space. Warner Bros.’ A Minecraft Movie was a definitive film of 2025, performing best at the domestic box office and nearly reaching $1 billion globally.
Fallout remains a massive hit on Amazon Prime Video, its second season the top original series viewed on the service for 2026 so far, per Luminate Streaming Viewership (M). Additionally, Paramount Skydance struck a deal for exclusive film and TV rights to Call of Duty last year, with Peter Berg and Taylor Sheridan helming development for its first-ever movie adaptation.
If Microsoft can’t right the Xbox ship with Helix, the existing enthusiasm for its IP will be nothing more than a souvenir of a bygone era.
