Twenty-five years after the original Xbox first booted up with that unmistakable green glow, Microsoft is finally letting fans put their money down on a console that looks like it walked straight out of 2001. Preorders for the Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition and its matching controller went live this week.

Let’s start with the obvious: this thing looks fantastic. The Series X25 brings back the translucent “OG Green” shell that made the original Xbox instantly recognizable back when Halo was still a launch title and Bill Gates was doing keynote demos. It’s the first time Microsoft has ever put a see-through finish on a Series X, and the execution goes well beyond just swapping the plastic color. Power it on and the iconic “X” logo lights up in green, a direct callback to the original startup animation, while a dedicated 25th Anniversary emblem sits on the front of the console. Microsoft says there are additional hidden tributes scattered across the hardware for eagle-eyed fans to spot, which feels like exactly the kind of easter-egg hunting Xbox diehards will enjoy picking apart online.

Every single unit is individually numbered with a unique engraving, which is a nice touch that turns this from “just another special edition” into something closer to a numbered collectible. Under the hood, it’s still a standard Series X with 1TB of storage and a disc drive, so nothing about performance changes here. This is purely a design flex, not a hardware upgrade.

The matching Xbox Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition mirrors that same translucent green look and layers on some genuinely thoughtful nostalgia. The bumpers pay homage to the black-and-white buttons from the original “Duke” controller, the ABXY buttons return to their classic color scheme, and the battery door is fully transparent so you can see the classic Xbox logo sitting inside. It’s the kind of controller that will look just as good sitting on a shelf as it does in your hands.

Now for the part that’s got people talking: pricing. Microsoft confirmed the full Xbox 25th anniversary collection, console plus controller, launches November 13, 2026, for $899.99, which is a full $300 more than a standard Series X. That premium has raised some eyebrows, especially since there’s nothing functionally different under the hood, but limited-run nostalgia hardware has never really been about cold, rational value. If you just want the controller without committing to a new console, that’s available separately for $79.99 starting October 20.

There’s also a genuinely clever bundled incentive here: every console includes a full download of Halo: Campaign Evolved, the modernized remake of the campaign that helped define the original Xbox experience for an entire generation of players. Pairing a legacy-defining game with legacy-defining hardware is a smart move, and it gives the price tag a little more justification than the paint job alone would.

As for actually getting one, the rollout has a layered structure. Some of Xbox’s most loyal fans were invited via email to preorder starting today, while everyone else in select markets got their shot on Thursday, August 27 at 7 am PDT through the Xbox website or participating retailers. Microsoft has been explicit that supplies are limited and capped at one unit per customer, so this isn’t shaping up to be a console you can casually grab a few weeks after launch. Given how fast anniversary hardware from any company tends to sell out, and how much attention this translucent green design has already generated since its Xbox Games Showcase debut back in June, expect scalpers and resellers to jump on this the same way they did with the original launch-team green Xboxes decades ago, which now fetch thousands of dollars on the resale market.

There’s something fitting about Xbox celebrating a quarter-century milestone by literally going back to where it started visually, while still packing in current-gen power. Whether the $899.99 price tag feels justified probably depends on how much that green glow means to you personally, but for a certain slice of Xbox’s fanbase, this was never really a question of price. It was only ever a question of how fast they could click “preorder.”