In July 2015, Xbox chief Phil Spencer referred to keyboard and mouse support for the Xbox One, saying "those aren't far away".
Eleven months on, that support still hasn't arrived, and it's not clear exactly when it will be introduced.
In an interview with PCGamesN at the E3 gaming expo this week, Spencer discussed various topics, including Microsoft's new Xbox Play Anywhere feature, which will allow customers to buy a game once and play it on both their Windows 10 PCs and Xbox Ones. Referring to the challenges for developers of designing games that work equally well on both PC and console, he said:
When we enable PC and mouse on console it’ll be interesting to see how many of those creators think about running their PC and mouse-only game on console, and then this idea of Play Anywhere might get even more interesting for those guys.
But the question of precisely when mouse and keyboard support on the Xbox One will arrive remains unanswered. Spencer said: "I keep talking about it in the press and my platform team keeps shaking their head because they... Truthfully, in our dev kit modes now, keyboard works; mouse support is a little bit further away."
So it sounds like Microsoft hasn't actually got mouse support working yet on the Xbox One, and it seems it will be a while longer before both mouse and keyboard support become available on the console. Spencer said that he continues to talk about that functionality "because I know it's not years away", adding, "It's more like months away, but we don't have an exact date yet."
Spencer's comments are particularly interesting, given that Microsoft made no mention of support for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps on the Xbox One in its recent announcement regarding the next major update for the console. While some Windows 10 apps will no doubt be perfectly usable with controller interactions, mouse and keyboard input will surely be required for certain apps to work well.
Source: PCGamesN via MicrosoftInsider.es
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