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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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?

[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.

Oh tempora...!

[yanestra]

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

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 (!!)

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.

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.

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).