Leaked memo reveals next Xbox could play 5 generations of games
With the gaming world in freefall right now, we could do with a little good news. 2026 is supposed to be a year for celebration as Grand Theft Auto VI finally races into our lives, but instead, the biggest gaming release of all time is in danger of being overshadowed by a run of bad luck.
Hopefully, Xbox's potential plans for Project Helix's backward compatibility will put a smile on all our faces.
Away from fears that the next PlayStation and Xbox will cost well over $1,000, Donald Trump's trade tariffs have upturned the industry, GTA VI won't even release with a disc, and Sony is axing all physical discs in January 2028.
If all of that wasn't enough to deal with, the good news of Xbox Game Pass coming down in price was quickly followed by mass Microsoft layoffs and a huge restructuring of the company's gaming arm.
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New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has borne the brunt of the abuse, but hoping to turn things around, a leaked memo suggests Project Helix could play every Xbox game ever made.
With five generations and thousands of titles since Halo: Combat Evolved arrived on the OG Xbox in 2001, that's pretty good going.
In a leaked memo shared by The Verge, the Helix console is being built with backward compatibility as a major selling point.
While Microsoft has already dabbled with potentially digitizing your catalog of games and bringing Xbox 360 games to PC, the memo mentions that these Xbox 360 titles will be able to run on Helix in addition to 'Xbox PCs'.
More than this, your digitized Xbox One and Xbox Series discs will supposedly follow you to “any Xbox device,” which also extends to Helix.
Before you start jumping for joy, remember that it's still undecided whether Helix will even have a disc drive, meaning it's not as simple as dusting off a copy of Fable II and booting it up.
We're also reminded that backward compatibility is again at the mercy of publishers, with the Microsoft memo trying to win them over in a whole section titled "Why publishers win".
Dangling the idea that gamers who never had the original hardware can now access a publisher's forgotten games, there's also the temptation of TV/anniversary tie-ins giving older titles a boost, as well as 2006 games being repackaged like they're 2026 games.
Even where publishers don't get a new sale thanks to Microsoft's proposed disc-to-digital rollout, there's the apparent bonus where you can "turn physical disc owners into digital customers" and presumably sell them other digital releases.
Although publishers are told they won't have to lift a finger in terms of engineering, they get to decide which titles will be added to the program, how much they'll cost, and whether they can be included in the Game Pass subscription service or be left as a standalone purchase.
Suddenly, the promise that every Xbox game since 2001 will be playable on Helix doesn't sound too hopeful.
Like we previously covered, 2013's Deadpool is unplayable because Activision's license expired, reiterating that Microsoft doesn't hold all the cards here.
As The Verge notes, Microsoft has the added coup of being a publisher in its own right, and having acquired mega franchises like Call of Duty and Fallout, they should at least be popping up.
It also feels like we've been here before, as between 2015 and 2021 it's said Microsoft made around 25% of the Xbox 360 library and 6% of the OG Xbox library available on Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles.
The OG Xbox library feels like an untapped goldmine of potential when it comes to the Helix helping earn some good faith from disgruntled gamers, and if we get to play some golden oldies, it might take the sting out of the next console's presumably gargantuan price tag.