Shift Up’s chief technology officer, Dong-ki Lee, says he is looking forward to Xbox’s next-generation Project Helix — and has asked for an early development kit in Korea.
The comments came during a panel at the Console Game Developers Conference 2026 in Seoul on 9 November, as reported by Inven. Microsoft has not issued its own write-up of the remarks, and Shift Up has not announced a Project Helix game.
“Personally, I am looking forward to the next-gen Xbox ‘Helix’,” Lee said, according to Inven. “From an engineer’s standpoint, if you provide us with a dev kit first in Korea as early as possible, we will put in our best efforts to develop for it.”
Xbox officially confirmed the Project Helix codename earlier this year. In a March 2026 Xbox Wire post, Jason Ronald, vice president of next generation at Xbox, said the team plans to ship alpha versions of the hardware to developers beginning in 2027. A retail launch date has not been confirmed.
What Xbox has officially confirmed
- Project Helix: Official codename for Xbox’s next-generation console
- Developer kits: Alpha hardware planned from 2027, according to Xbox Wire
- Launch date: Not confirmed
- ‘Helix S’: Not announced
- Shift Up: No Project Helix game has been announced
Harada’s Series S jokes, and a ‘Helix S’ aside
The same Seoul panel also heard frank talk about Xbox Series S from VS Studio CEO Katsuhiro Harada and Paweł Sasko, associate game director at CD Projekt Red. Those remarks, too, come from Inven’s report rather than an official statement from Xbox, VS Studio or CD Projekt Red.
Harada, noting that a senior Xbox official was in the room, joked that he wished hardware like Xbox Series S would not be released. He asked Sasko whether he had been quietly frustrated by it.
Sasko laughed and said the hardware “constantly throws challenges at us and forces us to optimize our code very cleanly.” Harada then characterised that answer, jokingly, as a polite way of saying “Xbox Series S sucks.” He said the awkward gap between Series S and Xbox Series X is the hard part, and that in markets such as the United States there are more Series S players than Series X players, so teams cannot cut corners. After launch, he added, those players complain to the developer rather than Microsoft about lower texture resolution on Series S.
Sasko said there was “a lot of truth” in Harada’s comments, and that players do not always understand why a version can look pared back. He also put the other side of the argument: Series S is more affordable, which helps studios reach players who cannot buy more expensive hardware.
Watching a Microsoft representative in the audience nod along, Harada then joked that he was worried the next Xbox generation might include a “Helix S.” Xbox has not announced a product by that name.
Will you be waiting for Project Helix, or are you happily settled on Xbox Series X|S? Let us know on X or Facebook.
