Xbox streaming console ‘years’ from release

Head of Xbox gaming Phil Spencer has revealed that a streaming-only Xbox console is still years from release, citing high costs as a barrier.

Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox gaming at Microsoft, has spoken about a streaming-only Xbox console the company has in development, but it’s reportedly still years away.

The streaming-only Xbox console, codenamed Keystone, is aimed at hitting a budget market, by leveraging streaming technology. The idea is that Keystone would plug into the HDMI port of a TV, much like a Google Chromecast, and offer gameplay over the internet, with the device itself only handling the video processing, controller inputs, and Wi-Fi connectivity.

Unfortunately, the cost of the technology makes it prohibitive right now, despite it reportedly working well.

Spencer said the team built the streaming console in just nine months, and a bunch of the Xbox team took one home to test it out. That said, they couldn’t get the price down enough to make it worth it.

“With Keystone, [we’re] still focused on it [and] when we can get the right costs,” Spencer said in an interview on The Verge’s Decoder podcast. “But when you’ve got the Series S at $299 ($A499), and during the holidays you’ll see some price promotion. I think in order for a streaming-only box to make sense, the price delta to [the Xbox Series S] has to be pretty significant.”

Microsoft currently has two consoles on the market, the high-end Xbox Series X, and the mid-range Xbox Series S. Picture: Microsoft

Spencer said he wanted Keystone to come with a controller, which would add to the cost, so buyers of the product would be able to plug-and-play without needing to buy anything further. However, including the controller drove up the cost, which he says he wants to be somewhere around $A150.

“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,” he said of the price. “We just weren’t there. We weren’t there with the controller.”

The Xbox Series S is the cheapest next-generation console on the market, and has been popular among families for its low price and plentiful content. Picture: Microsoft

The Series S is currently the cheapest next generation console on the market, as the more affordable version of a Series X, which costs $749. The PlayStation 5 comes in two variants, a digital-only console which costs $649.95, and a console that supports discs for $799.95.

Microsoft recently revealed that 7 million Xbox accounts had been banned in 2022, in a transparency report focused on the first six months of the year. It said that most of those accounts had been banned using what it calls “proactive moderation”, where the account was removed before it affected other players.

The company is also embroiled in multiple anti-competition investigations, as it attempts to acquire major publisher Activision Blizzard, who develops and publishes Call of Duty. Microsoft says the deal isn’t all about Call of Duty, though, instead saying that Activision Blizzard’s mobile assets in Candy Crush developer King are far more important to future growth.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.