Xbox’s Project Helix, Sony’s PS6, and the PlayStation Handheld Still Targeting a Holiday 2027 Release

Today’s slew of GDC 2026 presentations included a surprisingly interesting keynote talk from Jason Ronald, vice president at Xbox, providing some insight into the next generation of Xbox hardware with Project Helix. Included in that was the confirmation that the alpha versions of Project Helix’s development kits won’t be going out to developers until 2027, which sparked plenty of concern about the final release dates for the next generation of hardware. If game developers won’t go hands-on with Project Helix until next year, what’s the earliest players will get their chance? 2028? 2030?

Well, according to known AMD leaker Kepler_L2, the plan for both Xbox’s Project Helix and Sony’s PlayStation 6 is not to make players wait that long. Instead, the plan is still to have both devices out by Holiday 2027, as Kepler_L2 has previously claimed.

What’s more is that the rumoured PlayStation Handheld device is also still set to arrive around the same time, according to Kepler_L2. They didn’t offer any more information beyond the fact that all three devices still have that release window, but at least we have some indication that the next generation of video game hardware isn’t another two or more years away.

With all that said, even with a leaker like Kepler_L2, it’s always worth taking these claims with a grain of salt, especially when it comes to release timings more than anything else. The plan for a release date can change at the drop of a hat, and though it’s very believable that the plan at the time of this writing for both Sony and Microsoft is to have their consoles out within weeks or even days of each other once again for 2027’s holiday season, we’ve not even halfway through 2026 right now.

There’s still a lot of time and a lot of things that have to go right to ensure that those devices will meet their targeted release dates, and amidst the ongoing memory crisis and tariff concerns, it’s difficult to hang your hat on any hardware release windows.

Hopefully, though, Kepler_L2 is right. It would be exciting to be at the start of a new generation once again. Just be sure to save your pennies where possible, if the worst of the reports about how much these devices will likely cost are realized.

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