I'm curious to see if they will follow the Series X/S split hardware path with a high and low end model, or go back to a singular device.

Dont think so. I think the MS produced one will be high spec like they said.

However i also believe like Valve they will license it out and maybe allow other hardware makers to make lower priced but lower end versions.

I also believe the might even be higher end versions. Funny how this was MS plan for the Original Xbox.

I have no interest in this at all. I think it will be a niche player in the market with this device, yes more than Valve's steam hardware but insignificant compared to Sony and Nintendo hardware products. I have a steam deck and mini pc running steam os and those devices just work to play PC games of any vintage it seems. I still prefer Windows as a desktop computer environment although I only use stripped down LTSC versions but I really don't want anything to do with Windows when it comes to gaming nowadays. The more I understand about Linux the more I move over to that as my preferred desktop environment. Maybe in 2 years Windows will have no interest to me at all when I finally decide Linux is better for general computing. I also think the Xbox brand has been hugely damaged in recent times.

Well for the Linux part, you are in a very small minority so it is really not relevant :)

As for the project Helix itself, I can see why it may not be for everyone but I would not be surprised for this to be more successful than some imagine, one of the reason (no matter what the haters will say while jumping at their keyboards after my comment) is Windows and being able to play your full Xbox library (non Xbox Anywhere title and from other publishers on a single device. Linux is cute and all, but most people want a PC running Windows, and it looks like this thing is going to be doing that.

My 4 kids all have a PC (playing mostly Steam/Xbox Games) and an Xbox Series X... With this, they will have a single device that can play their entire library... I want to believe that I'm not alone in that situation and this is while I think this is more appealing in general than any Steam Machine out there cause it does the same thing + more..

This really does feel like the last roll of the dice for Xbox; if this fails, Xbox is likely dead for good, at least as far as hardware goes.

After 13 years of fighting a retreating action, this is their last stand.

If it can prove itself viable, they may persist as a niche platform, but if not, it's over.

Supposedly, it will play all XBOX games from previous generations.

It's most likely still a console, with it's own SDKs and low level optimizations that usual consoles allow for, with games released for it just as for any traditional consoles, while also being able to run in "PC" mode, behaving as pre-built PC.

If MS does indeed treat it as console, it will be interesting to see how the same game performs on its "console" part vs when it runs on it via Steam.

According to the guy who leaked Microsoft going full multiplat before Phil even announced the "just 4 games", SneakerSO from NeoGAF, Helix is a PC running windowns FSE, running emulators for BC, will have no exclusives and will be really expensive.

He also says MS knows it and will use its low selling numbers as the last excuse to just jump away from doing hardware, because the new CEO just wanted to cancel it but too much money was already spent to not release it and get some back.

https://x.com/xMBGx/status/2030429644277825896?s=20

This tweet doesn't have it all, but has a summary of many of these.

Thats what i was expecting tbh a pc with a xbox logo slapped on.

Yeah, I get it, maybe.  But Halo Anniversary exists.  Gaiden 2 was remade.  Oblivion was remade.  Gears was remade.  Not sure how big of a selling point old BC will be, at least for 95% of gamers.

I'm guessing it might be important to folks who have substantial XBOX library - BC is sort of expected from new consoles these days.

But even without BC angle, if there is to be Helix versions of the games, that are fine tuned for its hardware, as opposed to general PC port, then having both console and PC (that can run your existing library) in the same device might potentially be interesting proposition for many PC gamers.