With Xbox Project Helix and DLSS 5, the Next Generation Of Gaming Is Going To Be Expensive and Weird

I have been on vacation or sick for most of the last two weeks. In that time, Microsoft soft-announced its next console, Valve gave more information about what the Steam Machine will be able to do, and Nvidia previewed DLSS 5 way before it was ready. Needless to say, a lot of shit has gone down.

When you put all of it together, it starts to paint a picture of the next generation of gaming hardware that looks completely different than anything we’ve seen before. Rather than the similar x86 boxes that we got from the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, it seems like every platform is going to be doing its own thing.

That’d be awesome in normal times, but the times we’re living through are decidedly not normal. RAM and other hardware shortages are causing skyrocketing prices and delays aplenty, and now I have to ask the question: Even if the next generation of gaming is awesome, how many people are actually going to be able to participate?

Will the RAM Shortage Last Until 2030?

With so much information about next-generation hardware coming out, usually that’d mean that new consoles and graphics cards are right around the corner. But right now, the RAM shortage is throwing a wrench into that typical sequence of events.

Even just for PC gaming, the configuration I’d recommend to most people is 32GB of DDR5 RAM, just to give yourself enough breathing room. Last year, a 32GB kit of RAM may have cost you around $100, but in 2026, the price has ballooned. For instance, the RAM I use to test hardware, a 32GB kit of G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo, will set you back $489 on Newegg.

That would be bad enough if this was just a temporary shortage, but we’re probably going to have to strap ourselves in for the long haul. As early as January, I was being told that the shortage would last through 2027, and it turns out that was the optimistic take.

Instead, SK Hynix Chairman Chey Tae-won has suggested that the RAM shortage could last through 2030, according to a report from Reuters. If that holds true, hardware is going to trickle out at an extremely slow rate for the next few years and it’s going to be much more expensive than it otherwise would be.

To be clear, this isn’t just going to impact gaming PCs. DRAM is needed for all gaming hardware, so this will impact Xbox Project Helix and the Steam Machine as much as it will DIY PC builders.

Either new consoles and graphics cards are going to be delayed into oblivion, or they’re going to be so expensive that most people won’t be able to buy them. And, well, both options kind of suck!

The Xbox Project Helix Curveball

While all of this uncertainty has been cooking in the background, Microsoft came out and gave some early information on the next Xbox, Project Helix. I’ve been saying for a year now that the next-generation Xbox was probably going to be a glorified PC, and it seems like I was on to something. The next Xbox will be able to run all of your PC games, which means it’s running on some form of Windows 11 (or maybe even Windows 12?).

A year ago, when Phil Spencer first teased this approach at Summer Games Fest, I was ecstatic. An Xbox that was also a gaming PC would be a great way to create a sort of baseline for PC games that developers could optimize their games around. Incidentally, that’s also why I’m still looking forward to the Steam Machine. It doesn’t really matter too much to me how powerful either of these boxes are, because the real service is setting the baseline for what games should be able to run on.

However, now that we’re in the middle of this seemingly unending RAM crisis, a gaming PC / console hybrid seems more like a liability than it did a year ago. If Microsoft wants this thing to run any PC game, it will have to be an open platform, just like the Steam Machine. That’s sure to be great news for anyone who buys it, but it also means that when it comes out, it’s going to be significantly more expensive than a closed-off Xbox Series X followup otherwise would be.

That’s because in a closed system like, say, the Xbox Series X, all game sales go through Microsoft, which takes a cut off the top. That helps subsidize the cost of the hardware, which is typically sold at a loss. A gaming console that also lets you play games through third-party stores won’t have that guarantee, so it’s way more likely that Microsoft will sell the hardware to make a direct profit from it, making it more expensive.

It’s still way too early to know what kind of hardware is going to be in the Helix-Box, but Microsoft made some lofty claims about its capabilities at GDC 2026 last week. Namely, that the new console is going to be able to take advantage of Neural Rendering techniques – much like DLSS 5, which debuted earlier this week.

Whatever Microsoft and AMD have cooking up in the way of Neural Rendering, the next Xbox is likely going to be a bit less… extreme than what Nvidia showed off, but no matter what it is, it’s going to be demanding. That DLSS 5 demo, whether you love it or hate it, took up a lot of VRAM, needing two RTX 5090s to run it, according to Digital Foundry. For context, one RTX 5090 has 32GB of GDDR7 video memory, twice what’s found in the Xbox Series X, and that’s on top of system memory.

If AI is going to be core to the next Xbox, it’s going to need some serious hardware, and with hardware prices being what they are now, it’s very possible that Project Helix is going to cost upwards of $1,000. That’s a big price to pay for a game console, and almost $400 more than the current base model of the Series X.

Schrödinger’s Generation

With all the rumors and product teases swirling around the internet, it kind of feels like the next generation of games is right around the corner. The tech is certainly there for it, but instead of feeling confident that we’re going to see the next consoles by the end of next year, it instead feels like we’re in a hardware paradox and it all comes down to the RAM shortage.

Thanks in large part to the AI that’s going to play a huge role in upcoming graphics technology, the hardware that powers it is more expensive and scarce than ever before. So, we’re in a holding pattern, waiting to see whether the prices are going to go down enough to make releasing new consoles and graphics cards at an affordable price is going to be possible, or whether or not the manufacturers are just going to say screw it and release incredibly expensive hardware.

The reality is that it’s probably going to land somewhere in the middle, with expensive devices that are delayed a few months. And, really, I’ll be keeping my eye on the Steam Machine to give a clearer picture on what direction things will be leaning.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra