Xbox has been teasing its fans with the rumoured streaming stick for two years, but now we sure won’t see it anytime soon.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer mentioned during The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live 2022 conference that the company had been developing the long-rumoured device but had decided earlier this year to collaborate with Samsung on cloud gaming instead.
As a result, Samsung TVs and monitors from 2022 will start receiving the Xbox Cloud Gaming software in June. Microsoft claims that while Cloud Gaming will initially only be accessible on Samsung displays, it will have “other TV partnerships” in the future. In any case, this is a significant advancement in Microsoft’s plans for game streaming.
Given that Spencer has been openly talking about a streaming stick for at least two years, it is quite a let down from the company. However, fans may have noticed a reported prototype of the elusive Keystone last month when he tweeted about Fallout’s 25th anniversary. Apparently it’s no longer rumoured after Spencer indicated at the conference that the product in question was actually the prototype for Keystone and that its purpose was to give customers more choices for where to play games.
Even though he acknowledged it’s probably a long way off, Spencer didn’t completely rule out the notion of releasing something similar to the keystone. “Will we do a streaming device at some point? I suspect we will, but I think it’s years away,” said Spencer.
