Xbox One To Gain Mouse and Keyboard Support Next Week (polygon.com)

Microsoft will add mouse and keyboard support to the Xbox One next week, the company announced during its X018 gaming event. From a report: In a surprising twist, Fortnite will be one of the first games to take advantage of the new feature. This update has been discussed for years, but the feature was given a concrete launch window back in September of this year, when Microsoft claimed that Warframe would be playable with a mouse and keyboard in October. The free-to-play first-person shooter will still be among the earliest games to enable this control option. Here's a roundup of everything else Microsoft announced at the gaming conference.

Comments

What will the windows key do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any bets on what the windows key or ctrl-alt-del will do to the xbone?

Re:What will the windows key do?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they have any sense, I suppose Ctrl-Alt-Del could bring up that top-level menu you get when you push the Xbox logo button in the top middle the controller. I'm sure it's got a name, but I'm not exactly a gamer.

Next comes Microsoft Office support

[jfdavis668]

I always wanted to update a spreadsheet on the TV.

Re:Next comes Microsoft Office support

[LuniticusTheSane]

Does your video card not have HDMI out?

Re:Next comes Microsoft Office support

[Anonymous Coward]

Strictly speaking, I already *am* using Office on a TV. I have a 40" 4K LG TV as my primary monitor, so given the console is getting mouse and keyboard support, I don't know why you'd be writing this to get a cheap laugh.

Re: Next comes Microsoft Office support

[Anonymous Coward]

I will wait to see what the release looks like. They sometimes announce features too early. Best to go check it out yourself in the store first.

Re:Next comes Microsoft Office support

[squiggleslash]

Well, Excel 95 and Office 2000 both have hidden features that would work pretty well on an Xbox.

Re:Next comes Microsoft Office support

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never used a Xbox One, but I thought they ran Windows 8/Windows 10 applications? Microsoft has a united framework for console, PC, tablet and Windows phone?
Of course though, they seem to have kept Office on Win32 as far as I know.
But, they abandoned their tablet and phone stuff.
But, there is new x86 tablet.
But, there are new ARM laptops. Laptop not tablet.
But, you don't understand anything, so let's put everything in the cloud.
But, let's use keyboard and mouse on the console.
But, it will not run Win32.
But, you can buy the AMD Feng Huang console which runs Win32.
But, why not run Microsoft Edge.
But, they released MS-DOS 1.x and 2.0 as open source. You should really run Lotus 1-2-3 on that.

Re:Next comes Microsoft Office support

[stealth_finger]

I always wanted to update a spreadsheet on the TV.

A TV is just a monitor with a tuner.

Finally

[Opportunist]

Console gamers will be able to play with PC gamers without having to rely on aimbots.

Sorry. "Aiming assistance".

Re:Finally

[alvinrod]

It's still not going to be equal footing. Even when they come out, consoles aren't terribly powerful so a PC gamer is going to have an advantage just because their frame rate is better. Trying to aim in an FPS that's running like a slide show is almost worse than having to do with a controller.

I understand the convenience factor of consoles for a lot of people, but if you're going to primarily game with a keyboard/mouse, you may as well just build a PC at that point.

Re: Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Most likeæy obly a few games will support this

FYI ... even the Playstation 2 has games with support for USB HID mice and keyboards ... an example is Half life

But still... PC Masterace FTW :-)

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Consoles tend not to have frame rate issues (the exception bugs at launch that are patched out) precisely because it's fairly fixed hardware.

In fact, console gamers are some of the most vocal in demanding 60fps for everything, even when it doesn't make sense or will make fuck all difference, and as a result if the hardware becomes the bottle neck they just reduce quality, or try and reach the same quality by some indirect method (i.e. upscaling).

So I'm not sure how FPS will really be a problem, I've always found FPS to be more of a problem on PC because when I have a choice between FPS and shiny I'm drawn to fucking shiny and I find it so hard to turn shiny off once I've seen it.

No one develops a console game that looks beautiful but runs like shite, they develop specifically for the hardware, because they can, because unlike PC, it's a fixed target and players tend not to have a choice in the matter.

Re:Finally

[epyT-R]

consoles...no framerate issues... riiight
1. classic 8/16 bit consoles had serious sprites/line issues causing flickering and slowdown. Every frame is still drawn, just not at 60hz, and/or sprites would fail to be drawn in time for every frame, causing them to flicker. controller input lag is also a problem.
2. the 32 bit era suffered from lots of low framerate 'full motion' video, and choppy 20-30fps 3D with all sorts of texture popping and distortion thanks to bad (or nonexistent) perspective correction. Even the fast games of that era (eg wipeout on psx, which were fun as hell) suffered from this. Very few titles ran at 60fps.
3. today's consoles still cannot hold 60fps in a number of popular titles, with many developers opting for a 30hz lock instead of toning down the graphics. Unlike the slowdown of the 16bit era, they just drop frames instead. Just like in the 80s/90s, they think graphics sell more titles than fluid gameplay. Too bad.

Re: Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

This is false. In the early days of Nintendo yea we got some slowed down frames.

But since the PlayStation 1, I don't think I have ever experienced frame drops on a PlayStation EVER. And if i did it was so unoticeable that I didn't even notice.

But i agree. Pre PlayStation we did have some frame issues in games.

For an example, go play megaman 1 or 2
On NES, and watch how some parts of some stages just slow to a crawl when too many enemies are on the screen.

Re:Finally

[UnknownSoldier]

> console gamers are some of the most demanding 60 fps even when it doesn't make sense

Frankly, you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

1. Dark Souls dipped down to a shitty 12 FPS on last gen consoles before it got remastered and got frame locked to 60 FPS on current gen consoles.

12 FPS is a SHIT experience. PERIOD.

It ALWAYS makes sense for 60 FPS **minimum.** If you can't hit 60 FPS then YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. I say that as a ex console developer, graphics and UI expert.

2. Many consoles games run at a CRAPPY 30 FPS. Many crappy console ports are framed locked to either 30 or 60 FPS _even_ when ported to PC and are completely broken when run at 120 or 144 FPS.

3. It is NOT _just_ console gamers, nor just PC gamers demanding 60 FPS. Sega's arcade Daytona USA ran at a silky smooth 60 fps back in 1994!! Because frame rate **matters** -- especially for racing games.

Why?

30 FPS = 1000 ms/30 f/s = 33.33 ms input lag
60 FPS = 1000 ms/60 f/s = 16.66 ms input lag.

Next gen phones and tablets are now targeting 120 FPS *precisely* to minimize input lag.

Professional drummers can detect as little as 1 ms input lag I'm told !!

Gamers bitched for years about micro-stuttering: when a game runs at mostly 60 fps and dips for 1 frame down to 30 FPS. (I'm one of the people who can detect this -- and no I'm not special, many others can too.) Benchmarks now show the 99% percentile so we can see when games do this as a result of us demanding GPU manufacturers look into this issue.

SHMUPS are another genre where 60 FPS matters.

Fighting games have traditionally run at 60 FPS such as Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast. Because 30 FPS is shit for competitive play.

4. 60 FPS games do NOT sell any better then 30 FPS. Devs know this and fucking lazy. The majority of gamers don't know, don't care, or can't tell the difference between 30 and 60.

5. Some of us demand 60 FPS because there is a HUGE difference between 120 FPS, 60 FPS, and a crappy 30 FPS. The hardest hits are pans.

* http://red.cachefly.net/learn/...

* http://red.cachefly.net/learn/...

5. Just because YOU can't tell the difference between a shity 24 FPS and 60 FPS doesn't imply no one else can.

6. Your final clue stick would be to ask Hmm, WHY are the VR guys targeting 90 FPS??

Because people get motion sickness at lesser frame rates!

Next time instead of spouting bullshit try RESEARCHING the topic.

--
The holy trinity of graphics:

* 120 FPS
* 12-bit / channel HDR
* 300 DPI

Re: Finally

[aliquis]

Most PCs are potatoes.

Re: Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

And there's always new shit. 8GB RAM, not enough (unless you kill your web browser and explorer.exe). Dual core, not enough. 5GB free, not enough. DX11 low end card, not enough. They are still selling Radeon 6450 and R5 230 - same thing - years after cancelling driver support for them, and nvidia GT710 and GT730 aren't that much better (they get security fixes only).

On the other hand if you go yet again spend $800 or $1200 on PC hardware, add price of monitor and Internet, you get enough pixels to jizz in your hand. Also I want to play games when the Internet is down, but fuck you when the Internet is down you can't install and/or play games.
It's great if you want and can play GTA 5 in 2560x1440, it sucks if you just want to play a game on your PC like it's the year 2002.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I always LOL when people claim there is no difference.

Re: Finally

[AC-x]

But since the PlayStation 1, I don't think I have ever experienced frame drops on a PlayStation EVER. And if i did it was so unoticeable that I didn't even notice.

I think you're mis-remembering PS1 era graphics quite badly there! Almost all PS1 3D games ran at 30fps or below and often did stutter with a lot of on-screen action. Of course back when I were a lad after walking home from school uphill both ways we were bloody well grateful for any 3D games we got!

Re:Finally

[AC-x]

classic 8/16 bit consoles had serious sprites/line issues causing flickering and slowdown. Every frame is still drawn, just not at 60hz, and/or sprites would fail to be drawn in time for every frame, causing them to flicker.

Sprite flicker on NES is well known, but I can't think of any games on SNES / Genesis that had any problem with sprite draw or slowdown.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

"The holy trinity of graphics:

* 120 FPS
* 12-bit / channel HDR
* 300 DPI"

Which for all 3 of the PC gamers that have it is lovely, meanwhile 95% of PC gamers are stuck at 30fps, 720p at best.

And all 300 million current gen console gamers enjoy fixed 60 fps in all modern competitive FPS games.

One buggy PoS example (that was patched and fixed as per my original comment) doesn't in any way invalidate my argument. All you've done is prove you're a zealot by pretending that any meaningful amount of players have a high end gaming PC capable of 120fps, they don't, they're a small niche market.

Besides, you're wrong about most else of what you said, hell, you're not even managing to maintain a rational argument, one minute you say the majority of gamers can't tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps in point 4, then in point 5 you say I can't tell the difference, what the fuck are you on? There's a clear difference and everyone who is a non-retard clearly prefers 60 fps because it's noticably smoother. The same can't be said for 60 fps to 120 fps however.

You also say VR uses 90 fps otherwise people get sick, yes, that's true, but what the fuck has that got to do with playing on a monitor or TV where you don't get motion sickness because you still have your peripheral vision? For someone trying to argue as if they know what they're on about, you aren't have talking an astounding amount of drivel.

You should probably not engage in discussions you don't understand purely because you're driven by sheer zealotry, because the contradictions and falsehoods you've spewed in your rage induce master PC race bullshit makes you look like an idiot, because, well, you are.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Already could have on PS2/PS3/PS4 which all had M+K support, not to mention any console if you bought a M+K adapter like the XIM4

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

PCs don't even have equal footing. Honestly you'd have to be nuts to think that there's an automatic advantage with PCs. There's a wide spectrum of machines out there, not everyone has a Titan X. This is where matchmaking comes in. Use logic here. All this is doing is throwing yet another configuration into the aggregate. Nothing new to gaming.

Re:Finally

[UnknownSoldier]

> meanwhile 95% of PC gamers are stuck at 30fps, 720p at best.

[[Citation]]

Instead of pulling numbers out of your ASS (which makes you look like an idiot) why don't you actually LOOK at the data such as STEAM users:

* Around 0.37% use 1280 x 720
* Around 12.62% use 1366 x 768
* Around 64.29% use 1920 x 1080.

Where the fuck are you getting "95% of PC gamers" from??? Do you even USE a PC ???

> but what the fuck has that got to do with playing on a monitor or TV where you don't get motion sickness because you still have your peripheral vision?

FALSE.

My wife gets motion sickness at > 30 fps on both TV and monitors.

More proof that you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

Why don't you actually TALK to people doing VR and LEARN about issues instead of spouting nonsense.

First, your argument was:

console gamers are some of the most demanding 60 fps

which is FALSE.

a) Oh look at that shitty 30 FPS, even on PS4 Pro:

* Destiny 2
* Horizon Zero Dawn

b) Let's ALSO conveniently ignore that fact that Arcade gamers and PCs gamers have enjoyed 60 FPS _long_ before console gamers did.

c) Let's ignore tablet and phones now targeting 120 FPS

Now you are shifting the goal posts to some bullshit "competitive FPS" line.

> console gamers enjoy fixed 60 fps in all modern competitive FPS games.

Except NOT all (console) games run at 60 fps. THAT's the point.

So much for console gamers "demanding" 60 FPS when there is ZERO sales data to support it.

> console gamers are some of the most demanding 60 fps even when it doesn't make sense

WHEN does it not make sense to run at 60 FPS ???

If you can't even run the UI at 60 FPS you are doing it wrong.

Re:Finally

[UnknownSoldier]

>> The holy trinity of graphics:
>> * 120 FPS
>> * 12-bit / channel HDR
>> * 300 DPI"

> Which for all 3 of the PC gamers that have it is lovely,

/whoosh

You DO realize that is an IDEAL, right???

Re: Finally

[aliquis]

The point is mostly that the "Glorious PC master race" user has a peasant PC with worse performance than the latest console gen.

There's definitely exceptions but it's completely wrong to assume that PCs has better hardware. They can have but most won't.

Mixed Reality support?

[BenJeremy]

This is what they need to bring to the table for Xbox One X... announce support for existing MR headsets, which, at typically around $200 on sale, would bring PC-grade VR to the consoles (PS4's set isn't up to par) - along with some games.

The tech is there, VR is on the cusp, but can't break out of the "gimmick" impression many people still have.

Re:Mixed Reality support?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

VR is on the cusp, but can't break out of the "gimmick" impression many people still have.

Driven there by the Google Cardboard/Samsung VR helmet level experiences. Curiously, MS, Apple, FB, HTC and Valve all invested heavily in VR. Was Google trying to reduce it to a gimmick to dry up the market?

Re:Mixed Reality support?

[BenJeremy]

Fair question... poor VR equipment does more harm than good in an area like this.

To be honest, the missing piece is the galvonic stimulator, to simulate motion on our inner ears. There are several in development, but it is mostly at the academic level. Eliminating motion sickness, combined with relatively cheap, simple entry level equipment could be the thing that drives it to the mainstream.

I've thought Microsoft was driving toward incorporating Mixed Reality into the Xbox, and it is disappointing they've pulled back on whatever plans they might have had.

Re:Mixed Reality support?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I wonder is why take AR, which some people at least knew what it was, and call it MR so that only people reading Microsoft press releases about AR know what it refers to.

Re:Mixed Reality support?

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't hear of anything Apple about VR, maybe they'll support Pokemon kind of bullshit but that's all.
You forgot about Failbook and their Oculus.
I have not heard about Amazon VR either.
In fact I remember like 15 years ago, saying to myself I'm playing Doom in 640x480. That's VR, or that's enough VR. What's next I'll go to the bathroom and there'll be a robot hand that wipes my ass. It's good for millionaires in suits and tie being given a virtual tour of an oil&gas plant but why should I care.

Re:Mixed Reality support?

[BenJeremy]

AR is one end of the spectrum of MR... the other end being full immersive VR. The MR headsets for Windows machines built by Lenovo, Acer and such, are somewhere in the middle because they use inside-out tracking, which provides some information about the surroundings - it's somewhat aware of walls and such thanks to cameras in the headsets. Oculus is heading in that direction as well. I suspect headsets in the future will use a combination of sensor pods and inside-out tracking eventually, but right now, it's pretty good.

Pure AR is being aimed at the enterprise by Microsoft with Hololens, which is prohibitively expensive ($3000) and while impressive to try out, still has some work to do before it's ready for primetime.

Re:Mixed Reality support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for the explanation.
So if you have say three or four people running around with VR headsets in room like those used for laser tag, that is MR I suppose.
I had seen a video where a guy is walking around a circle in the "real world", hand on the pretend wall, and is tricked into believing he's walking an infinite corridor. I found that funny but it also might be a bit useful.

Xbox more Pro than the iPad Pro!

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPad Pro is for professional doodlers.

Oh tempora...!

[yanestra]

What comes next? Support for abitrary devies. Like, for instance, a PS4 controller?

Re:Oh tempora...!

[Anonymous Coward]

I probably like Microsoft controllers better, so ideally I would have an Xbox X controller with a PS4 Pro console.

Also, there are the goddamn phones with their computer functions. I would like a wired controller and a wired keyboard to go with them. Think of it do they even sell wired controllers for the consoles? Why should I give a shit about wireless hipsters and pay $90 instead of $20 for everything? Think of shit like the SNES classic, Playstation classic. When you sell an entire console AND a controller for the price of a controller alone there is something wrong.

Not First Person

[Edward Nardella]

Last I checked, Warframe was third person only.

Re:Not First Person

[Luckyo]

But do we all lift together?

The aim bots aren't enough

[rsilvergun]

I'm an amateur and I can still mop the floor with a pad player when I'm on keyboard & mouse. The accuracy is just too much. That's why Microsoft never did this. They ran some tests a while back and found amateurs with mice could beat pros with gamepads after a few hours play to learn the maps.

I'm assuming they'll be some way to exclude the mouse players from games. Otherwise XBox is about to become headshot city.

Re:The aim bots aren't enough

[AC-x]

I'm assuming they'll be some way to exclude the mouse players from games. Otherwise XBox is about to become headshot city.

Surely matchmaking based on rank would naturally sort that out? Also Fortnite doesn't already allows KB&M PC players to play against control pad XB / Switch / PS4 players? And even touchscreen mobile players (!!)

Next Xbox will be a PC as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart people know a sea change is coming to home computing. Apple is now out of the picture. Hopeless tablets are a rapidly fading fad. The real deal is the x64 microsoft PC, and now in a race to the bottom re: hardware costs, the next console from MS will be better than 99% of home PCs, gaming included.

The new Xbox will have a vastly better RAM infrastructure than any home PC (still all stuck on Intel's dreadful 2 x 64 bit RAM interface using mega slow DDR rather than GDDR). A 1080TI class GPU (that Nvidia now calls a 2080 and charges the earth for it- and it is still a failing piece of junk with returns at a shocking rate). The same high speed USB interfaces as the PC. Ready built, with a great (for ordinary joes) online infrastructure, and a price less than HALF of a similarly specced PC. All thanks to the last innovator- AMD (Intel is long dead).

For the SAME graphics performance as next year's next Xbox, Nvidia wants TWICE the money for the GPU card alone. And this new console will have an eight core Zen2 (AMD's Intel smashing CPU).

The Xbox Two (and PS5) will make GAMING PC's (with anything but the most insane cost) redundant. Homework/work basic PCs will be the last gasp of the traditional PC in the home- down to cost alone (an AMD APU integrates all basic functionality into a single very cheap chip- but not one suitable for heavy gaming).

PC gaming has been killed by Nvidia's pure greed (and sabotage of efficient gaming performance with nonsense like 'Gameworks'- rotten GPU code sythetically ruining the performance of all PC GPU's, just moreso on AMD GPUs). Games on consoles, on the other hand, have to be ultra code efficient- current Xbox 1X gamers game at 4K on an AMD equivalent 580 GPU, whereas the same 580 GPU in a gaming PC couldn't dream of doing 4k, even with vastly better CPU cores, thanks to Nvidia (Nvidia pays PC game devs to massively sabotage their own code).

So MS keyboard and mouse is NOT a gift to FPS console gamers, but an act of preparation for the next console which will run all the apps from MS's app store. Sadly this console will NOT run third party Win32 programs- killing off the reason most of us use a PC. The age of Wintel is almost ended.

Re:Next Xbox will be a PC as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for this post, I really enjoyed delving further in the citations you included.

NOT!

Congratulations

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Congratulations, you invented the desktop PC.

I'm actually surprised you couldn't already hook up a mouse and a keyboard, but I don't follow gaming or gaming consoles.

Re:Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

KB+M support on consoles is nothing new. The PS2 could support KB+M for network stuff as well as a few games (like Half Life: Decay), and the original Xbox could use it for text input. The only real reason it's becoming a selling point now is that there are more cross-platform games like Fortnite that show a serious gap between KB+M and controllers (previously there was a Shadowrun-based FPS that supported crossplay between the Xbox 360 and PC, but it was painfully stilted in favor of PC players on KB+M)..

about time

[slashmydots]

I would literally rather turn around and aim a gun in an FPS game using a mouse and just my ass cheeks than use a joystick. Pseudo-absolute positioning vs fully relative positioning? How is that efficient?! What kind of sick person would even considering it acceptable? Now if only they'd get rid of the whole pay monthly to play online with games you already bought even though you already have an internet connection that you pay for thing...which they won't, so buy a PC.

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next up

[sad_]

and next announcement will be that you can run windows 10 applications on your xbox, and at that point the xbox really is just a pc (but even more locked down).

welcome to 2005

[DrYak]

Also, there are the goddamn phones with their computer functions. I would like a wired controller and a wired keyboard to go with them.

which is supported by all systems running on the Linux kernel, be it Android (just plug a powered USB HUB with your keyboard and mouse into the OTG port of any smartphone/tablet - as long as it has the corresponding port, you get keyboard support and a mouse pointer) or the full blown GNU/Linux alternatives (I'm using keyboards on Jolla Sailfish OS).

it already works, try it (keyboards, be it USB or Bluetooth are extremely useful for chatting)
some constructors even specifically target this use (Samsung's DEX is basicslly a dock with ready to use HMDI and USB-A ports for exactly that, coupled with software to run containers of your favorite distro - say Ubuntu - snd blow that on the monitor)

the only limitation is that not all Android *games* have special code to handle controllers (though sometime they support keyboards), so you'll need some middleware to remap input events into taps (or keypresses).

RTS Gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Good, I won't have to continually update/upgrade my PC to play RTS games anymore. Get PS4 to follow suit, then release the next AoE and C&C.

Re:RTS Gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Bet you are still waiting for that sequel to Pong also, right?