What you need to know
- A newly discovered Microsoft patent has given us a closer look at the canceled Xbox Keystone streaming console.
- The device is designed to sit under a TV and stream games via Xbox Game Pass.
- Keystone was canceled after Microsoft couldn’t price it fairly.
In 2021, Microsoft announced that it was working on a dedicated streaming device for Xbox Game Pass. That device was later revealed to be codenamed Keystone, which took the form of a streaming box that would sit underneath your TV, cost a fraction of the price of a normal Xbox, and offer the ability to play Xbox games via the cloud .
Unfortunately, it appears that Microsoft has since scrapped plans to ship Xbox Keystone due to its inability to bring the price down to a level where it made sense for customers. Xbox CEO Phil Spencer says the device should have cost around $99 to $129, but the company wasn’t able to make that happen.
This means we never really got a chance to see what Xbox Keystone looked like. The closest we ever got was a photo posted by Phil Spencer, which happened to show a front view of the Xbox Keystone device on a shelf. That’s as much as we’ve ever seen from the console, so far.
Thanks to a patent discovered by Windows Central, we can finally take a closer look at the box that Microsoft came up with internally. First, the patent reveals that the console took the shape of a flat square with a circular shape on top, similar to the black circular vent on an Xbox Series S. The front of the box had the Xbox power button and a USB gate. A harbor.
On the back there were three additional ports; HDMI, ethernet, and power. On the right side of the console there appeared to be a pairing button for the Xbox controller, and on the bottom there was a circular ‘Hello from Seattle’ plaque where the console sat, similar to the Xbox Series X.
This patent was filed in June 2022, around the time that Xbox Keystone details were first revealed. Sadly, it’s unlikely that Xbox Keystone will ever see the light of day in this specific form, but at least we now know what it would have looked like.
We still don’t know much about what powers things under the hood, including what kind of operating system or firmware it was running. Was it a full-fledged Xbox operating system without local game support? Or did it run something lighter with an Xbox Game Pass app on top? We don’t know that right now, and we probably never will.
Keystone is gone, but Microsoft is not retreating from the cloud
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Microsoft has given up on the Xbox Keystone console for now, but that doesn’t mean they’ve given up on the cloud either.
The biggest barriers to the cloud right now relate to the business model. Running cloud gaming servers 24/7 is incredibly expensive, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at $15 per month doesn’t cover the costs on its own. In theory, in-game purchases and outright game purchases could help improve the business model to some extent, but gatekeeper companies like Apple and Google are working hard to prevent that business model from developing. Microsoft is known to be working on its own mobile gaming store for Android and iOS, but I have absolutely no idea how they get people to download it. It won’t appear natively on Android and iOS, just as cloud gaming doesn’t, and the mobile audience expects easy access as their north star.
A console like Keystone could break this, but as my colleague Zac Bowden noted above, Microsoft failed to get the price down. People would expect a device that can only play streaming games to cost around $99, and that was Keystone’s goal, but demand for components (boosted by the AI gold rush) has kept computer component prices erratically high.
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Instead of a dedicated device, Microsoft told me in LA for the Xbox Games Showcase 2024 that they’re seeing huge growth with TV apps, like the ones that come standard on the Samsung TV Gaming Hub. I’ve heard that Microsoft has been experimenting with delivering PC cloud games through Xbox Cloud Gaming, which would boost its catalog. Microsoft is also known to be working on allowing players to bring their existing game libraries to the cloud and purchase cloud games to own, pending discussions with third-party publishers and licensees.
The cloud may be an add-on these days, but it’s important that Microsoft keeps its foot in the door in this area. One day, cloud gaming could become indistinguishable from local play, and platforms like NVIDIA GeForce Now are proving that the technology is completely viable. Xbox Cloud Gaming still has some catching up to do in terms of technology, but there’s no reason to believe this won’t be possible in the future.