During the recent Inside Xbox episode that air today, Phil Spencer finally uttered the words that many Xbox One owners have been waiting to hear. Keyboard and mouse support is officially coming to the Xbox One. Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about this coming to the Xbox One. However, it is the first official announcement of it.
Mouse and keyboard very close to coming to Xbox console. Lots of developer options to ensure fairness and a great experience. Choice is in the hands of the developer to do multiplayer pools (controller only, kb/mouse only, any, etc.). Soon! #Xbox
— Mike Ybarra 🎄 (@Qwik) September 25, 2018
It will officially be rolled out in October 2018. Most existing USB and wireless keyboard and mice will be compatible with the Xbox One as well. The first game to support KB&M will be Warframe and will be updated accordingly.
Of course, this also opens the doors for more games to support K&B. Games that normally couldn’t be brought over to consoles due to them relying more on KB&M than they would with a controller. Games such as Age of Empires 4 and even Halo Wars, would have benefitted from a KB&M. Hell, now you even have the possibility of an extremely popular MMO making its way to Xbox.
Most existing USB and wireless keyboard and mice will be compatible with the Xbox One as well.
Of course, Phil was quick to point out that enabling a KB&M is solely up to the developers. Meaning not every game will support this and developers will have total freedom on if they want to enable it or not. Microsoft is not forcing this on anyone, which should make everyone happy.
Except it doesn’t seem to be. As I can already see tweets from angry gamers saying that this could cause issues in multiplayer games. It’s the classic “PC vs Console” gamers argument all over again. I guess they haven’t been paying attention to what Epic Games did with only allowing Gears of Wars 4 PC and console gamers playing along each other and not against. I suppose you can’t please everyone, all the time.
https://twitter.com/SmeltedArmor/status/1044694689708830720
That’s not all, as Phil Spencer also mentioned that Microsoft has teamed up with Razer. Razer, who makes several popular PC accessories, could make those compatible for the Xbox One. Expect to see some exclusive Xbox One accessories produced by Razer due to this.
I think that’s really interesting to see that the support is finally coming. Sure, it will upset some people, but I feel that it will open doors for more. Especially those who enjoyed PC gaming but thought it was too complicated at times. Having a keyboard and mouse on your Xbox One could do wonders. But will it? We’ll just have to wait and see.
