14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s Play Anywhere effort is gaining ground these days, and with the company working hard to add cross-play to as many games as possible, it just makes sense for Xbox players to demand support for mouse and keyboard on their devices.
And although Microsoft has remained tight-lipped on such plans until now, the head of Xbox Phil Spencer has confirmed in a tweet that this is indeed one of the features the software giant is exploring at the moment. Spencer, however, hasn’t provided a target date for this new functionality, although many people expected it to be added with the debut of Halo Wars 2 launching next week.
“Just one question. Will the Xbox One gain any PC peripherals such as keyboard and mouse because of Halo Wars 2,” one user asked on Twitter. “It won't be there at launch but this is support we'd like to add as it comes to the Xbox platform,” he said a few days ago.
Halo Wars 2
Why would someone need mouse and keyboard support on the Xbox One, you could ask? With Microsoft investing so hard in cross-play support, it’s not hard to figure out that PC users could get a big advantage in terms of controls over those on the Xbox, especially in the case of games where increased precision is required, such as FPS titles.
Microsoft is already shipping preview builds of Xbox One updates to members of the Insider program, so if work on this new feature is advancing well, testers should start seeing early implementations in the coming weeks.
For the time being, Halo Wars 2 won’t come with support for keyboards and mice, but it could be added at a later time when the Xbox One is updated with such functionality. Given that Halo Wars 2 won’t boast cross-playing support from the beginning anyway, this isn’t such a big deal, so the company could sync the release of the two features later this year.