Xbox Cloud Gaming will soon have mouse and keyboard support

Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming service, xCloud, is getting a few upgrades in the near future. Microsoft announced that it has begun encouraging developers to support mouse and keyboard for more compatible xCloud games, and reduce latency. This was stated during the Xbox Game Streaming meeting at xFest.

The mouse and keyboard support feature hasn’t made it to xCloud’s PC users yet. But Microsoft says that developers can begin adding support to their games now, that way the feature will turn on on Xbox Cloud Gaming as soon as it’s available.

Xbox Cloud Gaming can be included in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions. It allows users to stream Xbox games via mobile, desktop, or TV devices. Although not all titles in the Game Pass Library are compatible with xCloud there are many that can be streamed from both Microsoft and third-party providers.

Microsoft also let developers know about the company’s new plans to decrease latency for game streaming. Microsoft’s new Display Details API is reducing the time-consuming and expensive streaming processes. This new process uses direct capture to stream the game instead of Microsoft’s previous, more complicated, display pipeline process.

Microsoft claims that developers can reduce latency by using direct capture streaming. This could lead to a drop in latency up to 72ms. However, this technology is not currently capable of supporting HDR. The maximum resolution for the tech is 1440p. This will render at 720p on smartphones and 1080p on computers and web browsers. While these are downgrades from the 4k streaming of the old process, the tradeoff in latency should still be a significant improvement and Microsoft says that it’s working to increase the quality possible on the new system.

Most of these features that Microsoft discussed during the Xbox Game Streaming presentation at its xFest developer event won’t actually be available immediately, but these big improvements to Xbox Cloud Gaming should be right around the corner.