Xbox Cloud Gaming to Get Mouse and Keyboard Support on PC

Microsoft is planning to add mouse and keyboard support for its Xbox Cloud Gaming service. The company mentioned the upcoming support yesterday in a video detailing future improvements coming to its Xbox Game Streaming technology (via The Verge).

Xbox Cloud Gaming is currently available on various platforms including Xbox consoles, mobile devices, and PCs. You currently need an Xbox controller to play most games, though over 100 cloud-enabled games also support touch controls.

“Xbox has been supporting keyboard and mouse for a few years now, and we’re working on adding it to streaming for PC users. 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,” explained explains Morgan Brown, a software engineer on the Xbox game streaming team.

There’s still a very limited number of Xbox games that support mouse and keyboard, and the list currently includes several Xbox Game Studios titles such as Minecraft, Halo: Infinite, Halo: MCC, Gears 5, and Sea of Thieves. Fortnite, the first free-to-play game available on Xbox Cloud Gaming also already supports mouse and keyboard input on Xbox consoles.

Xbox cloud-enabled games getting mouse and keyboard support could make Xbox Cloud Gaming more appealing for PC gamers. That’s especially true considering that competitors such as Google Stadia already support mouse and keyboard for all games.

In addition to the upcoming mouse and keyboard support for Xbox cloud-enabled games, Microsoft also detailed a new Direct Capture feature that will improve streaming latency in Xbox Cloud Gaming. Microsoft says the feature will be able to save up to 72ms of latency, and many cloud-enabled games will benefit from Direct Capture automatically.