Hori Unveils First Official Keyboard And Mouse For Xbox One

It has been widely anticipated for a few months now that the Xbox would get an official keyboard and mouse. As such, it is not much of a surprise that HORI unveiled the first Microsoft-approved keyboard and mouse on its website, called The Tactical Assault Commander Pro One.

Xbox’s CVP Mr. Ybarra made it clear during a PAX panel that there would be an official mouse and keyboard for Microsoft’s flagship console stating:

Keyboard and mouse support is definitely coming. We have to be very smart in how we do that. We’ll leave it a lot up to developer choice… So you’ll see our first games supporting keyboard and mouse soon; I can’t announce what that is, but soon. And based on developer interest, they’ll choose to do keyboard and mouse, or not!

The Tactical Assault Commander’s mechanical keyboard does not exactly sport a standard QWERTY design. The keypad bears little resemblance to standard keyboards as it only includes 20 LED backlit keys. The TAC Pro One is more like a miniature keypad device specifically tailored for first-person shooter games. The keypad includes an analog stick and customizable keys that players can remap as required.

The TAC Pro One mouse is the equivalent of a game pad’s analog stick with the addition of a 3200-DPI optical sensor. You can further configure the mouse with the Quick Button and Snipe Button, to enable more precise aiming. However, the mouse is not entirely essential as players can still move around with the keyboard’s arrow keys.

Although the Pro One is primarily designed for first-person shooters, the keyboard and mouse are also ideal for real-time and turn turn-based strategy games. Windows is the best platform for those genres largely because the keyboard and mouse work better for games such as Total War and Civilization.

Consequently, game developers will no longer have to rework control schemes for Windows games ported to the Xbox One, something that can help get more Windows games ported over to the Xbox One. With this new keypad and mouse, the Xbox One is further blurring the boundaries between Windows PCs and consoles.