Patent reveals cancelled Xbox streaming box – looks like a Dreamcast

A new discovered patent shows exactly what the Keystone console from Xbox would’ve looked like if it hadn’t been cancelled.

Back at the start of this generation, it seemed like Game Pass and streaming would come to dominate the future plans for Xbox, but reality hasn’t quite worked out like that.

Game Pass, and game subscription services in general, haven’t taken off quite the way that was expected and streaming is now rarely even mentioned in terms of gaming, even though Microsoft has an enormous advantage with the technology.

At one point they were planning to make a dedicated streaming box, that could be used instead of an Xbox Series X/S to stream and play games, but it was later cancelled and it’s only now that a patent has described exactly what it would’ve been.

Codenamed Keystone, the device was never formally announced, although a prototype did cameo in a video from Xbox boss Phil Spencer and was, as you’d expect, just a small innocuous looking box.

The whole point of streaming is that you need nothing special in terms of hardware, just a device to stream through and, ideally, a controller.

A smartphone or tablet would do fine, and is what millions of people use for videos and music, but if you want to play on your TV then some kind of set-top box is ideal, and that’s what Keynote would’ve been, according to the patent.

Although it was never announced to the public, Spencer did openly acknowledge that Keystone exists, admitting in 2022 that it had been cancelled because it couldn’t be manufactured cheaply enough.

Microsoft wanted to sell it for around $100 (£80) but due to component costs they weren’t able to do so. Of course, that’s the official reason given, whether it’s actually true is impossible to say – but since then they’ve rarely ever brought up the subject of streaming again.

Only a few months later they were describing cloud gaming as ‘immature technology’, although that was as part of their legal battle with the Federal Trade Commission, in order to be allowed to acquire Activision Blizzard, so again it’s probably best not to take their comments at face value.

Although streaming is assumed to be the future of gaming, and what will eventually make traditional consoles obsolete, it’s very difficult to say exactly when that might be.

The primary problem is the speed and reliability of broadband connections, which are far from uniform across the world or even within individual countries (given its size the US, in particular, remains highly variable).

Without a permanent high-quality connection games would suffer from inconsistent visuals and performance, or not work at all, so until that’s not an issue streaming will only ever be an optional extra, used primarily at home.