At this point, we know that Microsoft is full-speed ahead with Xbox Project Helix, and now Chief Content Officer Matt Booty has revealed that the company's first-party teams are deeply involved with crafting the hardware, even at an early stage.
Speaking on a new episode of the Official Xbox Podcast, Booty talked about the synergy between Xbox's hardware and software teams, and how the developers "are involved early on" - including with regards to the specs of the system.
"One of the really cool things about us as a publishing and game development organisation — that makes us different from a lot of the other big publishers in the industry — is that we are side-by-side in the same org. with the hardware team.
Our teams are involved early on with thinking about visioning, what's the planning, what are the specs - and of course we're there every step of the way as these things come along.
It's an exciting time, it's great to have the news out there and announced - and as we've done with many consoles before, those two teams will work hand-in-hand as we get that together. As the hardware comes online, our teams will be the first to get involved - there's a lot of that already happening."
As Booty hinted at towards the end of the quote there, this is a process that's happened before with older console cycles - but Xbox had a lot less development teams when the likes of Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S were being developed, and it'll be interesting to see just how much of an influence the Xbox studios will have on Project Helix this time around.
We're sure they'll be happy to hear that it's going to be powerful, premium, and a real bridge between console and PC development. For more on Project Helix, check out our related articles on the next-gen Xbox down below.