Today, Phil Spencer stated on Twitter that the Xbox One would get keyboard and mouse support for game streaming and strategy games. The console already supports keyboards so Microsoft would just have to implement mouse support.
As mention earlier, Phil brought up the possibility in response to the idea of streaming a Windows games to Xbox One. He hinted that after the Xbox One to Windows streaming was perfected, the team would tackle the other feature.
@lgriao @PNF4LYFE @Tak225Th Yep, keyboard and mouse support for Xbox would need to be there for this to work, those aren’t far away.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) July 21, 2015
@lgriao @PNF4LYFE @Tak225Th Mouse is what we’d need to add.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) July 21, 2015
@Tak225Th Still finishing Xbox to Win10 streaming right now. I like the idea of Win10->Xbox One streaming but don’t have a plan yet.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) July 21, 2015
The Xbox One gets an update every month and Preview members receive even more features early. It’s possible, with these rapid additions, that we could see official mouse support on Xbox One before the end of the year. Initially, it might be limited to using a mouse with certain applications or the browser but the support might extend to certain games later on.
I’m guessing that competitive multiplayer games will probably never get mouse and keyboard support but single-player experiences might. However, the most likely scenario is that the ability will be limited to streaming Windows games to Xbox One because it’s clear that the feature is in the pipeline. It would also be a great move by Microsoft to combat Steam Machines because that’s one of their most-advertised ability.
Source: VentureBeat
Asher Madan is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 182 articles to ICXM in 2015, focused on Windows and PC, and Xbox news: joined Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017 covering Xbox news, hardware, and reviews.