Xbox ‘Keystone’ streaming console is too expensive to produce

Earlier this year it was reported that Microsoft were working on a new streaming console known as ‘Project Keystone’. In May it was confirmed that the company shelved the project and fans recently started talking about the console because it happened to appear in a video with the Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer.

A few days ago, Phil Spencer was interviewed through The Verge’s Decoder Podcast and one of the questions asked was regarding the halt of the Keystone console.

The reason it is on hold is because the streaming console is too expensive to produce. It’s been clear the Microsoft wants you to have an Xbox experience anywhere possible and that’s why they made a partnership with Samsung where you can play Xbox games through the cloud gaming app on Samsung Televisions.

“I don’t want to announce pricing specifically, but I think you’ve got to be $129, $99, like somewhere in there for [Keystone] to make sense in my view, that we just weren’t there,” he 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.”

For the Keystone to make sense for consumers it would make sense for it to be lower than the $299.99 USD Xbox Series S, but it doesn’t seem possible right now.

The year of 2022 has brought the prices up on PlayStation 5 consoles and The Meta Quest 2. It is only a matter of time when the Xbox Series X could potentially go up in price as Microsoft continues to lose money on it.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz