Xbox Cloud Gaming is getting mouse and keyboard support and latency improvements
Microsoft is preparing to add mouse and keyboard support to its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service that streams Xbox games to TVs, PCs, mobile devices, and more. The software giant teased the addition earlier this year, and now it’s encouraging game developers to get ready for mouse and keyboard support and some big latency improvements on Xbox Cloud Gaming soon.
“Xbox has been supporting keyboard and mouse for a few years now, and we’re working on adding it to streaming for PC users,” explains Morgan Brown, a software engineer on Microsoft’s Xbox game streaming team. “But you can start adding it to your game right now and your console keyboard and mouse users will appreciate it. It will light up in streaming once we’ve finished adding it.”
Microsoft Flight Simulator boss Jorg Neumann previously teased that the addition of mouse and keyboard support on Xbox Cloud Gaming could appear this summer. As Microsoft is encouraging developers to start thinking more about mouse and keyboard support for Xbox games streamed to PC, it’s likely that we’ll start to see this show up soon.
It will allow Xbox Cloud Gaming users to stream Xbox games, not PC ones, using a mouse and keyboard. We could see games like Sea of Thieves, Minecraft, Halo Infinite, and even Fortnite all support mouse and keyboard through Xbox Cloud Gaming. The list of Xbox games that support mouse and keyboard is still relatively small, though. It will be particularly useful when Microsoft expands the Xbox Cloud Gaming library later this year.
Alongside mouse and keyboard support, Microsoft is also offering developers more ways to improve streaming latency in their games. Microsoft has been working on a new Display Details API, which can save up to 72ms of latency
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