Xbox One players will soon be able to use a mouse and keyboard with their console to play games that support them.
Xbox One players will soon be able to use a mouse and keyboard with their console to play games that support them.
During last night’s special Inside Xbox episode, head of Xbox Phil Spencer came on stage to talk about some of the company’s plans for the remainder of 2018.
One of the biggest announcements Spencer made was that mouse and keyboard support is finally, officially, coming to Xbox One. Spencer stressed that the intention is not to create an unfair advantage in shooters and other games for players who use mouse and keyboard.
Which is why enabling it will be entirely controlled by game developers. The idea, according to Spencer, is to allow games that traditionally avoid consoles to flourish on Xbox One. Genres like real-time strategy and other complex management sims work best with mouse and keyboard, and adding support for the feature could create a market for them on Xbox One.
With that in mind, he confirmed that players should not expect all games to work with mouse and keyboard when the feature hits, only ones whose developers have decided to enable it.
Mouse and keyboard support will first roll out to Preview members in October. Warframe is the first game to support mouse and keyboard on Xbox One, and it’s the one that’ll be used to test the feature.
As for hardware, Spencer revealed that all existing keyboard and mice peripherals, wired or wireless, will work with Xbox One thanks to the console’s native support of USB HID. But, if you’re looking for an upgrade, Microsoft has partnered with Razer to produce a new accessory, which the latter teased in the tweet below.
This looks like lapboard-style setup similar the ones already produced by Corsair, and Roccat. This style is perfect for playing mouse and keyboard games on the couch, but you do have to pay a bit extra for the pleasure.
Razer’s new product, and more of the games to first support mouse and keyboard, will be announced in November.
