Xbox Scraps Controversial Console Project, Good News For Project Helix

Xbox is on an upwards trajectory that can perhaps only be compared to the comeback of CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077.

In previous years, Xbox had fallen from grace.

The polarising ‘This Is An Xbox’ marketing campaign pitched anything as an Xbox, from TVs to mobile phones, leading fans to worry that Microsoft would be shifting away from traditional hardware.

Factor in that Xbox has failed to produce a GOTY nominee in 11 years and upset loyal consumers by adopting a new third-party game launch approach and you can see why things soured.

It turns out that all it took to reverse Xbox’s fortunes was to get rid of previous leaders Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond.

Since her appointment as Xbox’s new CEO in February, Asha Sharma has more than impressed fans of the green brand.

In just a few short months, she’s heralded in price cuts on Xbox Game Pass, confirmed the company’s next-gen console, canned the ‘This Is An Xbox’ campaign, overseen achievements improvements, and teased a possible return to an exclusive release model.

For the first time in a long time, there’s a buzz building around Xbox that truly hasn’t been felt in years.

Of course, Project Helix needs to be a success and Xbox really needs to deliver a GOTY worthy banger soon too, with Fable likely to be the strongest contender.

Xbox Game Studios

Even still, you can’t knock that things are on the up for the Xbox - and yet another just-announced change proves that.

Asha Sharma Is Ditching AI Completely At Xbox

Sharma has confirmed that Xbox is scrapping its AI plans with the closure of Copilot on Xbox Series X/S consoles already in the process of being wound down.

“Xbox needs to move faster, deepen our connection with the community, and address friction for both players and developers,” she tweeted.

“Today, we promoted leaders who helped build Xbox, while also bringing in new voices to help push us forward. This balance is important as we get the business back on track.

“As part of this shift, you’ll see us begin to retire features that don’t align with where we’re headed. We will begin winding down Copilot on mobile and will stop development of Copilot on console.”

This is brilliant news as, fair to say, AI is not popular with consumers within the gaming industry.

Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios merely confessed to using AI for ideation in pre-production with no AI assets surpassing that level and was met with heavy backlash; they eventually scrapped the use of AI.

It’s a story we’ve seen play out time and time again, with no one really wanting AI on consoles.

Gamers want impressive hardware, slick software that’s constantly striving to improve, and a stellar line-up of games. That’s all.

When Sharma was appointed, her background in AI at Microsoft prompted many concerns, but it’s great to see that her focus truly is on Xbox.

In fact, internally, even the name Microsoft Gaming has been done away with, with Xbox now being the naming convention again.

Xbox fans are all avidly waiting for the full reveal of Project Helix but there has been some concern that the console might be more focused on AI than anything else.

If Copilot is being sunsetted on Series X/S consoles, it's likely it won’t play a major part in Project Helix’s life cycle either.

“We went from weekly bad Xbox news to weekly amazing Xbox news with no major step backs,” replied one gamer.

“The world is healing,” added another.

“It took the AI veteran leader to kill AI at Xbox,” someone remarked.

All eyes will now be on 7 June when Xbox will hold its annual Xbox Showcase. We’ll be bringing you all the major headlines live.

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