pencer Discusses Mouse & Keyboard vs Controller Dispute For Windows 10/Xbox One Cross Platform Play

[Derouiche™]

Talking to Game Informer, Phil Spencer discussed a few of the things Microsoft has been quietly introducing and detailing in the last few months. Windows PC and Xbox One cross-platform play is a reality nowadays but people are still struggling to understand how Microsoft will handle it. This is what Spencer said about the ongoing challenge between keyboard & mouse and Xbox One controllers.

"I want to be clear on this one – I will never force someone in our games, who is playing with controller or mouse and keyboard, to play against somebody with a different control scheme. Mouse and keyboard rotation speed is faster than controller. We know that. You will lose. I shipped Shadowrun. I was part of that. But, as a platform, I want to enable players to make the choices they want to make. If you and I are playing a co-op game together […] there's no reason you and I can't go through a [Destiny] Strike, for example, you on mouse and keyboard, me on controller playing together, and we should be able to talk to each other. I want to completely enable that scenario. But for people who think, I don't want to get destroyed because some guy drops in with mouse and keyboard and he's just running a rampage over every match because he's moving faster – we don't want to do that. This is about putting tools in the hands of smart creators to make decisions on when it makes sense and when it doesn't make sense."

Recently, Epic Games' Tim Sweeney was pretty tough in talking about Windows 10 approach to gaming, in particular referring to the controversial Universal Windows Platform. Spencer discussed that with his usual display of fair play.

"Tim and I are actually good friends and have been for some time, and still are. I basically sent Tim what I was going to say [at the Build keynote] and we've been going back and forth. He came out to Redmond to review our plans. Some of the specific things he wanted to see, we showed some [on stage] and then I talked about some. He wanted a public statement about Windows being an open development platform, and Terry Myerson [executive VP of the Windows and Devices group] said that right at the beginning. The side-load, Kevin Gallo [VP Windows developer platform] showed double-clicking an app exe on the desktop and installing a Universal Windows Application without store UI and that could have just as easily come from the web we just happened to launch it from the desktop itself, and we wanted to show that. And then I wanted to show taking the Steam package and wrapped it running as a modern desktop application to show we're not trying to lock out those apps and games from being able to use Steamworks or to be deployed in other stores, so we wanted to show that directly.

It will be interesting to see what Tim says, because Tim's an important guy in the industry and someone I have immense respect for, and still do. I think he's great. The thing I love about Tim and you will know if you spend any time with him, is he comes from a virtuous place. He has a real principled view on how the games industry and frankly, overall Windows ecosystem, works, and I never worry that he is saying something for his own competitive reasons – it's just what Tim really believes. I'm not saying we always believe the same thing, but the motivations behind his beliefs have never been a question for me. I'll always listen to him."