Microsoft has finally revealed its plans to add support for mice and keyboards to its Xbox Cloud Gaming service that allows users to stream Xbox games to their TVs, PCs, and mobile devices.
“Xbox has been supporting keyboard and mouse for a few years now, and we’re working on adding it to streaming for PC users,” explained Morgan Brown, an engineer on Microsoft’s game streaming team. “But you can start adding it to your game right now and your console keyboard and mouse users will appreciate it. It will light up in streaming once we’ve finished adding it.”
Not many games on Xbox currently support mouse and keyboard, so Microsoft is currently encouraging developers to begin adding support right now in order to get ready for the release.
This will permit Xbox Cloud Gaming users to stream Xbox games with mouse/keyboard support (not PC ones). Current games with support include Sea of Thieves, Minecraft, Halo Infinite, and Fortnite.
Although most Xbox gamers are primarily used to using the controller, this will open up interaction for numerous other games to reach out to audiences who want to use a different control set in their living rooms or with mobile devices for gaming.
For example, streaming Xbox games that have been ported over from PC that are traditionally played with a mouse and keyboard that had been mapped onto controllers, would again give them new life on TVs and mobile with a mouse/keyboard once again for on-the-couch vicarious living.
It also opens up the possibility for more MMORPGs on the Xbox console through the cloud streaming service as they are traditionally more prosocial and tend to attract keyboard users.
Along with keyboard/mouse support, engineers also spoke about new latency technology that could help reduce latency and increase resolution. The entire video of the talk from Xfest 2022 is on YouTube.
Image: Pixabay
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