First announced in 2021 and codenamed ‘Keystone’, the device was being designed to let players stream Xbox games to TVs or monitors without the need for a console.
However, Xbox deprioritised work on the device after failing to produce it cheaply enough to be able to sell it at the desired price.
A patent filed in June 2022 and uncovered by Windows Central seemingly reveals how Microsoft envisioned the device at the time.
It was square with a circle shape on top, similar to the circular vent on the Xbox Series S.
The front of the box, which was once spotted in a photo posted by Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, featured the Xbox power button and a USB-A port.
On the back, there were HDMI, ethernet, and power ports. The right side included what looks like a controller pairing button, and underneath there’s a circular plate the device sat on, similar to the one used for the Xbox Series X console.
In late 2022, Xbox boss Spencer said Microsoft had chosen to deprioritise development of Keystone because it was struggling to produce it cost effectively.
He told The Verge’s Decoder podcast that the company built Keystone and some employees took it home to test it out but that while it worked well, it was proving too costly to make and bundle with a controller.
“I don’t want to announce pricing specifically, but I think you’ve got to be $129, $99, like somewhere in there for that to make sense in my view, that we just weren’t there,” Spencer said.
“We weren’t there with the controller. And I love the effort. The reason it’s on my shelf is the team rolled up their sleeves and in nine months they built that thing. And a bunch of us took it home and it worked. It worked really, really well.
“When you are building new products, it’s always about, do you have the right design? Do you have the right user interface? Do you have the right customer proposition? And the customer proposition includes the price, and I think all of us knew that we were a little out of position on price.”
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Source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/patent-reveals-what-xboxs-game-streaming-device-might-have-looked-like/
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