Microsoft Flight Simulator Head Shares xCloud Is To Receive Keyboard & Mouse Support As Soon As This Summer

Exploring the possibilities that xCloud has brought to the Xbox ecosystem has truly shined over the past year since its original release. Upon arriving to Android devices originally, we witnessed the technology bounce over to iOS & PC with the later addition welcoming the feature to even Xbox hardware as well. More notably is how Xbox One can take advantage of the this with Xbox Series-oriented releases on the way.

Last year, Microsoft when pressing on the matter for xCloud on console would introduce its newest titles to Xbox Game Pass also bridges to the cloud infrastructure as well. In that, the newest platform exclusives such as Redfall & Starfield will be available at launch, however, implemented through xCloud offers support to older hardware. We recently witnessed this with Microsoft Flight Simulator at the start of March this month.

In its most recent developer livestream, developer Asobo Studio presses further on xCloud. More specifically it is said that the team has implemented keyboard & mouse support for the new technology and anticipates the addition to come to xCloud in the coming months.

This is a platform level support, so it has nothing to do with us, obviously mouse/keyboard works for our sim. So the platform team is working on this, and no I can’t give a date because it’s the platform team. I don’t know their dates, but it’s coming, and we are also talking about making touch work.

Jorg Neumann, Microsoft Flight Simulator Head

He adds, “I would say it’s in the next months, it’s not weeks, and it might be… I’m hoping it will be done by June or so, but I can’t ever tell. Everybody wants it, I want it, and so… it’s coming. […] The gyro is actually very good — you can get yourself more into the experience of flying a plane.” 

From The Verge, Xbox spokesperson Adam Pannel went further elaborating on the features which Microsoft Flight Simulator is pioneering for xCloud. “At launch, ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator’ supports standard controller inputs for cloud gaming. The team is experimenting with touch/gyro and is excited to embrace M&K once it’s available on the platform but we have no specific announcements or timing to share at this time.”

Especially on the matter of touch controls, this will certainly be one feat to benefit the xCloud platform. In a previous report, it was revealed that more than 20 percent of users solely play with the touch screen scheme and adding gyro controls will be the cherry on top. You can read the full report by heading here.

Are you interested to see more features come to xCloud?