The streaming box for Xbox Game Pass and video apps ended up being more expensive than the $99-129 price point that Microsoft was aiming for.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer confirmed in an interview with The Verge that the 'Keystone' streaming box that was recently revealed on his office shelf is, well, shelved.
- "Keystone. It was more expensive than we wanted it to be when we actually built it out with the hardware that we had inside," said Spencer. "We decided to focus that team’s effort on delivering the smart TV streaming app."
He said that Microsoft had aimed for around $99 to $129 including an Xbox game controller.
Xbox 'Keystone' had the familiar Xbox user interface and "it worked really, really well", he said.
Xbox 'Keystone' hiding in plain sight on Phil Spencer's shelf. Photo: Phil Spencer
Judging from the photo it looks like a smaller version of Xbox Series S, presumably with scaled down AMD hardware based on an x86 CPU architecture. Such hardware would make it relatively expensive and be overkill for a streaming box for Xbox Game Pass and video apps.
The Xbox app is currently available TV-exclusively on Samsung's 2022 Smart TVs but we would not be surprised to see more partners announced at CES 2023 in January.
- "Will we do a streaming device at some point? I suspect we will, but I think it’s years away," Phil Spencer recently told the Wall Street Journal.
- Source: The Verge
