Microsoft has put a lot of its weight behind cloud gaming over the past couple of years, beefing up the backend, adding games, and more. Now, the company is preparing to add keyboard/mouse support to Xbox Cloud Gaming.
During XFest 2022 (via Tom Warren), a session revealed that Microsoft is adding support for keyboard/mouse input on Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Xbox consoles have supported keyboard/mouse input alongside controllers for years now, but the cloud gaming versions of those games have not offered support so far. Rather, games on Xbox Cloud Gaming require a controller if you’re playing on a PC and support controllers and touch controls on mobile, at least on supported games.
“Soon,” Xbox Cloud Gaming will support keyboard/mouse input on PC. It sounds like game developers don’t have to do anything beyond adding keyboard/mouse support to their games to take advantage of this new feature. The same methods will be used to support the input option on consoles.
9to5Google’s Take
Google Stadia, notably, has supported keyboard/mouse input since the platform first launched, and it was certainly an advantage of the platform. With it, players could launch a game without any additional hardware beyond what their computer already offered, and it was one of the few areas where Stadia had an upper hand over Xbox Cloud Gaming – and that’s a list that is quickly drying up, as we’ve covered in the past:
- Xbox Game Pass will soon stream purchased games and gain Samsung Smart TV app
- Xbox Game Pass cloud streaming w/ Series X backend arrives today, matching Stadia
Personally, I think this is a huge upgrade for Xbox Cloud Gaming. I’ve always been a fan of playing games with keyboard/mouse input, and I distinctly remember being annoyed that I couldn’t stream a game on my PC without switching to a controller.
It’s great to see Xbox finally getting up to speed in this area – now we just need wider TV support.
More on Cloud Gaming:
- Bandwidth: Xbox’s Cloud roster gets some big titles while God of War leaves GeForce Now
- ‘The Quarry’ was supposed to boost Stadia; now it’s not even coming to Google’s platform
- GeForce Now expands 120fps cloud gaming to all Android smartphones
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