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Microsoft and Razer Could Be Working on Xbox Keyboard and Mouse Support
It could finally be coming this year.
A long-teased Xbox One feature may now be a little bit closer to becoming a reality. Windows Central has acquired leaked documents pointing to Microsoft and Razer working together on Xbox One keyboard and mouse support.
Earlier this year, Microsoft and Razer reportedly gave developers a presentation about keyboard and mouse support coming to Xbox One and was at the time planning to integrate support into Xbox One development kits during the console's April update. A full release was planned to follow during this fall's update. It's not clear if this plan is still in the works for a future Xbox update or not.
The presentation focused on Razer's Turret keyboard and mouse, which the peripheral maker markets as a "gaming-grade" unit meant to be used in living rooms, but the update would enable support for all USB Windows mice except for those with custom drivers or that rely on Bluetooth. Each Xbox would be able to sync with just one mouse and keyboard at a time, and all games would still need to support Xbox controllers.
One question this naturally raises is how multiplayer would be affected by mouse and keyboard players having a seemingly unfair advantage over controller players. Microsoft would leave this up to individual developers, but it "highly suggested" developers have separate matchmaking pools for players using a keyboard and mouse versus those using a gamepad.
Xbox Executive Vice President of Gaming Phil Spencer said Microsoft already had keyboard support working on dev kits all the way back at E3 2016. At the time, he added that mouse support was "like months away." That support never surfaced, but Corporate Vice President of Xbox Program Management Mike Ybarra said last September that it was "definitely coming" and that it was coming "soon."
Nick Santangelo is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. He loves video games and sports, but not sports video games. Follow him on Twitter.