The Xbox that never was: Our first detailed look at the ‘Keystone’ cloud streaming console design

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 was designed to sit under a TV and stream games via Xbox Game Pass.
• Keystone was canceled after Microsoft was unable to price it reasonably.

Back 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 under your TV, cost a fraction of the price of a normal Xbox, and enable the ability to play Xbox games via the cloud.

Unfortunately, it appears Microsoft has since scrapped plans to ship Xbox Keystone due to an inability to bring the price down to a level where it made sense for customers. Xbox CEO Phil Spencer is on record saying the device should have costed around $99 or $129, but the company was unable to achieve this.

This means we never really got a chance to see what Xbox Keystone looked like. The closest we ever got was in a photo posted by Phil Spencer, which just so happened to include a front-on view of the Xbox Keystone device on a shelf. That’s as much as we’ve ever seen of the console, that is until now.

Thanks to a patent discovered by Windows Central, we can finally take a closer look at the box Microsoft had conjured up internally. First up, the patent reveals that the console took the form of an even square with a circle 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-A port.

Around the back, there were three additional ports; HDMI, ethernet, and power. On the right side of the console there was appears to be an Xbox controller pairing button, and the underside featured a circular “Hello from Seattle” plate that the console sat on, similar to the Xbox Series X.

This patent was filed in June 2022, which was around the time when the first details of Xbox Keystone were being revealed. Sadly, Xbox Keystone in this specific form is unlikely to ever to see the light of day, but at least we now know what it would have looked like.