Microsoft used the Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday June 7, 2026 to unveil the Xbox Series X25, a limited edition version of the Xbox Series X designed to celebrate 25 years of Xbox, and the product that the console's most devoted fans have been asking the company to make since the minute they first saw the original translucent green Xbox in 2001.
The X25 features a see-through "OG Green" shell, the first time the Xbox Series X has ever worn a transparent design, and launches in November 2026 alongside the Xbox Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition, which is also available as a standalone purchase beginning in October.
No pricing has been announced. No pre-orders are open yet. Both are coming soon, Microsoft said, with select retailers handling the release when the details are confirmed.
Given the limited edition designation and the collectible nature of the hardware, analysts and gaming publications are expecting a premium over the standard Series X's current price.
Jason Ronald, VP of Next Generation at Xbox, presented the console at the showcase. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma made a separate announcement that fans who attended the Xbox Games Showcase event in person would receive the console for free, a gesture that produced the specific reaction that giving people a $750 limited edition console tends to produce.
The Name And What It Means
The "X25" is not a model number or a hardware designation. It is math. Xbox launched its first console, simply called Xbox, on November 21, 2001 in North America. 2001 plus 25 equals 2026.
The console arrived twenty-five years after the original. The name announces the anniversary in the simplest possible terms and makes explicit the connection between where Xbox started and the hardware it is honoring.
The original 2001 Xbox was a massive black box with a prominent green X on its face, a console that Microsoft launched as a statement that it was serious about the video game business and that came bundled with a game called Halo: Combat Evolved that proved the point immediately.
The original controller, called the Duke, for its enormous size, had multicolored ABXY face buttons and a design that was, to put it gently, not universally beloved for ergonomics but that is now remembered with the warm nostalgia that comes from something genuinely iconic in hindsight.
The X25 design is the 2026 answer to everything people remember about that original hardware.
The translucent green shell lets you see through to the internal components, a design approach that the gaming community has been requesting for years across every console generation.
The controller restores the classic color-coded ABXY buttons that have been standardized to white on Xbox controllers for years. The see-through back case and battery door reveal the Xbox logo inside.
The black and white bumper accents nod to the Duke's distinctive button layout. Every detail is a deliberate callback to the design language of 2001.
The Halo Connection That Makes It More Than A Collector's Item
The Xbox Series X25 was announced at the same showcase as Halo: Campaign Evolved, Microsoft's Unreal Engine 5 remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, the game that launched alongside the original Xbox in 2001 and that made Xbox a viable platform in the first place.
Campaign Evolved launches July 28, 2026. The X25 launches in November 2026. The timing connects them explicitly, Halo is the software tribute to 25 years of Xbox, and the X25 is the hardware tribute.
The trailer for the X25 at the Xbox Games Showcase featured footage from Halo: Campaign Evolved, making the pairing official rather than coincidental. Microsoft wants the anniversary experience to be coherent, play Campaign Evolved on the anniversary hardware, watch the green translucent console light up when you power it on, and spend the 25th anniversary of Xbox playing a modern version of the game that defined what Xbox was.
The original Xbox shipped with Halo in November 2001. The Xbox Series X25 ships in November 2026. The software and hardware that started twenty-five years of Xbox are being honored together, in the same release window, on the same anniversary.
The Hardware Beneath The Anniversary Finish
The Xbox Series X25 is a limited edition design applied to existing Xbox Series X hardware, not a new generation of console, not an upgrade to the underlying specifications and not a preview of whatever comes next.
The internal components are identical to the standard Xbox Series X: the custom AMD processor, 16GB of GDDR6 memory, 1TB NVMe SSD and the full backwards compatibility library that the Series X has supported since its November 2020 launch.
That specification continuity is the right call for an anniversary product. A limited edition console that requires a new game library, new peripherals or a new understanding of what Xbox is would undermine its commemorative purpose.
The X25 is exactly what the occasion requires: the same Xbox experience, in the most beautiful hardware package Xbox has ever produced.
The exclusive content on the X25 that differentiates it beyond the shell design will likely include anniversary-themed dashboard artwork, the same kind of exclusive visual treatment that previous limited edition Xbox consoles have received.
Whether additional in-game content, bundled games or other anniversary extras accompany the hardware has not been officially confirmed.
The Controller That Can Be Bought Separately
The Xbox Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition may be the single most wanted component of the entire X25 announcement for the existing Xbox audience.
The controller arrives one month before the console, in October 2026, as a standalone purchase, meaning anyone with a current Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S can own the anniversary controller without purchasing the anniversary console.
The design choices on the controller are the most emotionally resonant part of the X25 package for longtime Xbox fans. The colorful ABXY buttons, the green A, red B, yellow Y and blue X that defined every Xbox game's button prompt design from 2001 through the mid-Xbox One era before being standardized to white, are back.
The translucent back case shows the circuitry beneath. The black and white bumper accents reference the Duke without replicating its ergonomic challenges.
The restoration of the colored face buttons alone would have been sufficient to generate strong demand for this controller.
Combined with the translucent design, the anniversary branding and the one-month-earlier October availability window, the X25 controller is positioned to sell independently of the console to an audience that has been asking Microsoft to bring back color to its controller buttons for years.
What The Anniversary Means For Xbox's Future
The X25 announcement closes one question the Xbox community has been asking about 2026's hardware plans while opening another about 2027.
With a limited edition anniversary console occupying the major holiday hardware slot for this year, the rumored next-generation Xbox platform, internally referred to as Project Helix by the gaming press, is increasingly unlikely to arrive before 2027.
The X25 is holiday 2026's Xbox hardware story. Project Helix is the 2027 story.
For the people who will buy the X25, that timeline is fine. The anniversary console is not a placeholder for something better, it is a celebration of what already exists, packaged in the form that the franchise's most devoted fans have been requesting since the original Xbox made green a gaming color.
November 2026. OG Green. Translucent. Twenty-five years of Xbox in a see-through shell.