Thinking About Keyboard/Mouse Support on Xbox One (Premium)

For over a year now, we’ve been told that official keyboard and mouse support would one day come to Xbox One. That support is almost certainly coming. But it probably won’t take the form that hardcore gamers would like. And it most certainly won’t usher in a new age of PC vs. console multiplayer gaming. Unless something changes, that is.

The issue, for the non-gamers in the audience, is that gaming on a PC with a keyboard and mouse is far more accurate and offers better performance than gaming (on a PC or a console) with a controller. So a match in which one player is using a keyboard and mouse and another is using a controller would be decidedly one-sided. In favor of the keyboard/mouser.

This is one reason why PC/console interoperability is almost non-existent when it comes to games. The PC gamers would simply dominate the console gamers.

(No, it’s not the only reason. We also don’t see PlayStation 4 gamers playing against Xbox One gamers in the same games either. That has more to do with the insular, protectionist policies of the console makers, in particular Sony, than anything else. I’m sure that Activision would love for PS4 and Xbox One gamers to compete together in Call of Duty, for example.)

So there are two ways, from a technical level, for this interoperability to work. You could bring console controllers to the PC. And/or you could bring keyboard and mouse to the consoles.

As it turns out, both have already happened. The PlayStation 4’s Dual Shock 4 controller is PC compatible, as are all versions of the Xbox One controller. And the PlayStation 4 does support USB keyboards and mice, albeit not for games: This support is for entering text, browsing the web, using apps, navigating the UI, and so on.

On the Xbox One, keyboard and mouse are not officially supported, though various Microsoft executives have said over the past year that this support is coming. Apparently, you can use certain adapters to enable this support today, unofficially. And Microsoft is OK with that because it lets those with certain accessibility issues play games that would otherwise be off-limits to them.

But this does, of course, open up the opportunity for abuse. Gamers looking for an edge could use their keyboard and mouse to dominate virtually everyone else, since almost all console gamers are, of course, using a controller.

I have experience with this, sort of: Back in the mid-1990’s, when I switched from the Amiga to the PC, I gave up Atari/Sega-style controllers for the keyboard. And I played early PC first-person shooters, like Castle Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM (and its many offshoots), and Duke Nukem 3D, entirely with a keyboard. But by the time real 3D games like Quake appeared, using a mouse became necessary. With a mouse, you could take advantage of what was then called “free look” capabilities, where you could move in one direction (using the keyboard) and look in any direction (using the mouse) simultaneously. And not just simultaneously, but instantaneously. The performance of this action was incredible, and you could do things like run straight forward while shooting up and to the left.

My transition from keyboard to keyboard/mouse was a difficult one, but it had to happen: I had reached the point in Quake and Quakeworld (a multiplayer-focused version of the game) where I was as good as you could be with just the keyboard. But I was getting destroyed by the mousers. You could always tell when you faced one.

I faced a similarly difficult transition when I moved to the console entirely with the release of the Xbox 360 in 2005. The issue there was that the controller felt less accurate—because it was—and first-person shooters compensated for this by adding auto-aim functionality. Plus, everyone was similarly outfitted with a controller, so it was fair. And controllers like the one used by Xbox One support free look capabilities, too, via dual thumbsticks. You use one to move and one to aim in 360 degrees.

I’m not personally aware of any keyboard/mousers who have disrupted console-based games. But maybe it wouldn’t be obvious: Console games are, of course, tailored for the native control scheme. And that means a standard Xbox Wireless Controller on Xbox One. Maybe a keyboard and mouse wouldn’t work that well anyway.

Regardless, Microsoft seems to be taking the right approach: For now, it is leaving keyboard and mouse support up to the game developers. And you could see where many game types, in particular, those that do not require lightning-quick trigger responses, could adopt this support without angering anyone. First person shooters, not so much.

But Microsoft is also in a unique position since it is, in effect, combining its Xbox One console with Windows 10 from a gaming platform perspective. Xbox gaming, as we now know it, is increasingly cross-platform. That’s why Microsoft offers a dongle for using an Xbox Wireless Controller on the PC. And why it lets PC makers build that technology directly into gaming rigs too.

The solution, then, is obvious: Microsoft should build capabilities into the platform that ensure that game makers can restrict instances of keyboard/mouser on controller user violence. That is, they can let games, even first-person shooters, work between Xbox One and Windows 10, perhaps by requiring a controller on both sides. In short, this needs to be a formal platform feature to ensure that it is never abused.

Having survived my embarrassments at the hands of mousers in the 1990’s, I’m not super-interested in going through that again today in modern console games like Call of Duty: WWII. But I would also like to see keyboard support, especially, for those off times when I need to type into a form on the console. And I respect the accessibility needs that others may have, and I am happy for the platform to be more open for everyone.

We’re well past due on this being a formal Xbox One feature. Let’s make this happen, Microsoft.