The New Xbox Is Cool, Nostalgic, and Really Freaking Green

Xbox, under new management, hopes you’ll take a long gander at the limited edition Xbox Series X25’s obscenely green translucent plastic and swoon with a sense of early 2000s nostalgia. The eye-catching colorway is reminiscent of the original Xbox clear green edition that came with Halo 2. (You likely remember it as the console your cousin had that made you so damn jealous.)

This is not a new edition of the $800 Xbox Series X Galaxy Black Edition since it only comes with 1 TB of SSD storage. The only real change to the nearly 6-year-old hardware is the addition of a green light under the big “X” symbol instead of the older white light.

The Xbox Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition may be the real reason you should get excited, especially since you don’t need to buy a whole new console to get it. It comes with the same nuclear-toned shell, but what’s even better is the black and white LB and RB bumper buttons, a clear nod to the monochromatic switches on the original Xbox controller. The controller also harkens back to an earlier time with the blue, red, yellow, and green face buttons.

Hell, if you want the most obscene puke-green PC setup, you could buy this controller alongside an 8bitDo Retro 87 Mechanical Keyboard – Xbox Edition. I’ll admit, that thought has me ready to drop way too much money for the sake of 2001-era nostalgia.

The new special edition Xbox hardware isn’t arriving until November this year, which will be the six-year anniversary of the Series S and Series X consoles. Microsoft hasn’t announced a specific price for its individual controller nor the new console colorway. Currently, a Series X costs $650 for a version with the disc drive, so the new excessively nostalgic version could cost more.

The hardware announcements were part of the 2026 Xbox Games Showcase, the first big Xbox meet and greet since Xbox CEO Asha Sharma took the reins in February. One of the big questions about the new Xbox era was how the company would handle console exclusivity. To start, Gears of War: E-Day will be tied specifically to Xbox and Xbox on PC at launch on Oct. 6. The same goes for inXile’s steampunk, time-bending, first-person RPG, Clockwork Revolutionwhen that arrives sometime in 2027. These games will also be available as day-one Game Pass titles. Xbox’s head of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty, explained to the Gamertag Radio podcast that multiplayer or live service titles will likely come to other consoles. Xbox then gets to decide what other games come to other platforms, what he called “the right decision, not the fast decision.”

It’s clear that Xbox is banking on longtime fans creating buzz, both about its hardware and game lineup. These are the kinds of gamers who remember when console exclusivity was the norm. PlayStation is similarly scaling back plans for cross-platform titles as it hikes the price of its PlayStation Plus subscription. There’s no going back to a simpler time, but console makers are doing everything they can to keep players engaged and locked down to their respective ecosystems.