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Yesterday, when Fortune published their big piece about Xbox, mentioning there had been internal clashes between the Xbox and Windows teams about the operating system for the next generation of Xbox hardware, people started to question what kind of OS we might actually be looking at on the Project Helix console and beyond.
After Windows Central had published their report on this, Xbox CTO Scott Van Vliet decided to chime in, confirming the Helix OS is "being built on Windows" and stating that the report from Fortune (and subsequently Windows Central) "misrepresents both the technical work and the relationship between the teams" at Xbox and Windows.
Here's a look at the statement for yourself:
This immediately sparked confusion and some concern that Xbox might be focusing on a PC-driven interface and ditching the console-style OS for the next console, but as many have pointed out since, the operating system for the current Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S is also technically "built on Windows".
Van Vliet's statement is very vague without a doubt, but it doesn't necessarily indicate that we'll be getting a full-on PC-style interface with the next Xbox console. The Verge's Tom Warren and Windows Central's Jez Corden are speculating that Helix will follow the Series X and S pattern of adopting a modified version of Windows.
Windows Central: "Windows already powers the current Xbox Series consoles, as well as Xbox One. It's a modified version of the OS that the Xbox team has customized, built on top of the Windows OS core that is developed by the Windows team. It sounds like the Xbox team has decided to maintain this approach with Project Helix consoles, expanding and building upon it with new features and capabilities such as running PC games."
For what it's worth, the initial report from Fortune mentioned how Windows and Xbox teams had clashed over the operating system for an upcoming handheld (that's seemingly set to launch in 2027), with Xbox wanting to optimise for the "best gaming performance" and the Windows team wanting to "use a trimmed-down version of Windows Home".
Windows Central also followed-up by saying they'd heard the two teams had "disagreed over the direction of the platform for certain gaming-specific experiences", but that it didn't mean they weren't still working together.
The Xbox CTO evidently wants to make it clear that Xbox and Windows are still working "closely" together on the next generation of Xbox systems, and who knows exactly what kind of operating system will be getting at the end of it!