How would you feel if some of the folks playing your competitive first-person shooter on a console started using a special adapter so they could play with a mouse and keyboard, rather than a gamepad?
Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan recently shared his thoughts on the topic in a forum post (he’s not a fan), and fellow devs may appreciate the way he draws attention to how lack of a clear mandate from console manufacturers regarding keyboard/mouse support leaves room for some players to gain a competitive advantage by investing in special adapters.
“The Overwatch team objects to the use of mouse and keyboard on console,” wrote Kaplan last week. “We have contacted both first-party console manufacturers and expressed our concern about the use of mouse and keyboard and input conversion devices.”
The conversion devices he’s talking about are things like the XIM4, which allow owners to hook up a keyboard and mouse to their consoles and map the inputs however they’d like.
As Kaplan points out, this is kind of a big deal because neither console (as of this writing) makes a big show of supporting keyboard and mouse. Currently the Xbox One doesn’t (yet) support them at all; the PlayStation 4 does, but very few games on the platform support native keyboard/mouse input.
Thus, writes Kaplan, “we have lobbied and will continue to lobby for first-party console manufacturers to either: Disallow mouse and keyboard and input conversion devices, OR openly and easily support mouse and keyboard for ALL players.”
He went on to encourage Overwatch players to contact hardware companies like Sony and Microsoft to share their concerns “in a productive and respectful way.”