It’s been almost a year since Microsoft showed plans to bring in Keyboard and mouse support for the Xbox and till date, we haven’t received anything official on that front. Xbox controller isn’t exactly suitable for many of the titles on Xbox and that made the news on Xbox keyboard and mouse support a hot topic to be discussed.
Recent leaks throw light on how Microsoft is getting close to bringing keyboard and mouse support for Xbox and also partnering with other third-party vendors for this. A prominent gaming hardware manufacturing company have reportedly got into a partnership with Microsoft to bring in their renowned Turret keyboard and mouse support for the Xbox. Further leaks from the presentation detail how they are planning to support Razer Chroma RGB lighting for Xbox titles that desperately need a keyboard and mouse support.
Details have come forward regarding the guidelines and features for the Mouse and keyboard support on Xbox. The main catch is that one console can support only one keyboard and mouse, unlike controllers.
Features listed for the Mouse are as follows:
In addition to these, existing USB-enabled mice including wireless ones working with Windows can also be supported on the Xbox without custom drivers. It should be noted that these use the same APIs same as the Universal Windows Platform. To prevent abuse of mouse and keyboard peripherals which mimic controller behavior, plans have been laid out to introduce new APIs which can potentially find and block such devices.
Impact on Multiplayer Xbox titles has been detailed giving a fair amount of freedom to the developers to use the keyboard and mouse support. They can use this to find the right balance in matchmaking and look into the details on how players on controllers and players on keyboard and mouse go up against each other. Microsoft also suggested using separate matchmaking rules for this.
Only future can tell if these plans will come to fruition as Xbox is in dire need of a keyboard and mouse support. Windows 10 Redstone 5 has popped up to include support for the Razer RS5 lighting support. This can mean various titles showing up on Xbox that were only playable with keyboard and mouse support. Gamers would be the winners here as they can choose how they want to play their favorite games on the Xbox.
