A leaked patent shows us our first detailed look at Xbox's canceled Keystone cloud console

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Project Keystone was canceled because of its cost

Xbox's canceled Keystone cloud console
(Image credit: Xbox)

The patent for Xbox's Keystone cloud console has been leaked, providing us with our first detailed look at the canceled device.

First spotted by Windows Central, the patent on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website shows features several blueprint images of the Xbox console and confirmed that the patent was filed in June 2022.

If you look at the images provided, it's clear that the device - codenamed Project Keystone - would have been a smaller, box-shaped design with a circular top reminiscent of the PlayStation 1, where you would insert the game disk.

However, since the Keystone was intended as a cloud console, there is no opening slot on the box to insert games. The top and front edge of the device also features the Xbox logo, with a few minimalistic buttons on either side.

There are what appears to be some ventilation ports too underneath the box like the Xbox Series X, as needed with every console to allow heat to pass through, as well as a diagram showing the slots required for HDMI and Ethernet cables.

The patent images are all in black and white, so it's unclear what color the console would have been, but if we were to look back at Xbox's history, it's likely Project Keystone would have been either black or white.

Microsoft announced that it was working on a new console back in 2021, at the time describing it as a dedicated streaming device for Xbox Game Pass. It wasn't until 2022 where we received confirmation via a dataminer that it was called Project Keystone. 

Unfortunately, later that year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer confirmed that the project was scrapped (via The Verge) because of its cost and due to an inability to bring the console down to a marketable price for customers. According to Spencer, he wanted Keystone to cost around between $99 and $129.

Rumors have been circulating about a potential Xbox handheld console for a while now, and although Xbox has yet to formally reveal anything of the sort, it did recently announce brand-new Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S models. 

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Demi Williams