Xbox will receive support for keyboard and mouse next week | Tech Industry

Something to look forward to: The keyboard and mouse combo is a fan favorite, offering more precision and speed in competitive titles than the gamepads that have always been the standard in consoles. For decades it’s been limited to use on the PC, but that’s bound to finally to change.

Revealed over three years ago, keyboard and mouse support will finally be launching for the Xbox One on November 14. It’s up to developers to implement this in games however, so only seven titles will be included at launch. These include Fortnite, Bomber Crew, Deep Rock Galactic, Strange Brigade, Virmintide 2, War Thunder and X-Morph Defense.

The rest of the announced games will receive support “soon,” probably before the end of the year. These include Warframe, Children of Morta, DayZ, Minion Master, Moonlighter, Vigor, Warface and Wargroove.

“There are some games out there that require mouse and keyboard and those can’t come to console today,” Microsoft said. “If we put this capability in the hands of developers, we’ll get more of those games.”

Keyboard and mice do offer a noticeable advantage in certain competitive titles, so it’s no surprise to see that Fortnite will be one of the games separating players by their input method. It is up to developers to balance their games, however, so we’ll have to wait and see how different titles decide to tackle the problem.

While pretty much any USB keyboard or mouse should work, Microsoft will be launching a “Designed for Xbox” program sometime early next year to guarantee compatibility and to include additional features like Dynamic Lighting support. Razer has partnered with Microsoft to be the first to launch Xbox-focused keyboards and mice, and they’re expected to announce their take on wireless console peripherals at CES in January.

Microsoft seems to be expecting lots of developers to jump on board soon, so stay tuned for more announcements.