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I have heard that the reason that the XBox live games cannot be played with friends on Windows machines is that when MS tried it out, the keyboard-based players were so dominant that Microsoft decided not to allow the capability. Specifically, I've heard this about FPS games.

This is repeated in many places, for example on this forum:

Definitely PC on the FPS front. Unless you plug in a mouse to the console. Mouse and WSAD are -much- better than console autoaim and all that, to be honest. Not to mention that due to more control, the PC FPS games tend to be more fast-paced than console ones, where part of the difficulty of the game actually lies in the controller.

—Console vs. Computer: FPS

So have Windows-based FPS players been proven to be generally superior to console FPS players, thus making this story plausible?

Sklivvz
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Larry OBrien
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    That has more to do with the superiority of the mouse than the keyboard. – Mad Scientist Jun 10 '11 at 20:31
  • @Fabian - there are some people who find FPSing with the mouse is an extremely low-success enterprise :) – user5341 Jun 11 '11 at 01:07
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    @DVK-- then these people should practice more :) – mmr Jun 12 '11 at 05:27
  • http://www.rahulsood.com/2010/07/console-gamers-get-killed-against-pc.html Maybe. There aren't many studies into this, however the evidence backs it up. Portal 2 has cross-platform play, so it's not a technical issue, and I can personally attest to being much faster and more accurate with a mouse than I am with a controller - but that's just me. It does seem likely, however, a mouse doesn't have a limitation on how fast you can move it, for example. – Phoshi Jun 12 '11 at 10:59
  • Presumably, one way to tell this would be to look at league tables and professional gamers. Who scores the highest in identical games; Xbox players or Windows players? Unfortunately, Microsoft don't seem to publish high score tables - unless I'm missing something? – Thomas O Jun 12 '11 at 11:39
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    The question is off topic because it's about the motivations of Microsoft - http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/621/politics-beliefs-and-motivations-questions-should-not-be-allowed-here – Christian Jun 12 '11 at 12:10
  • It has more to do with the combination of mouse and wasd than just pure wasd. I'd say that it's because mouse movement is one-to-one whereas an analogue stick isn't. – Sam P Jun 12 '11 at 13:06
  • @Thomas O; At least in competitive games, one would assume that the advantage would apply to all players and thus there should not be a significant divergence. – Phoshi Jun 12 '11 at 14:59
  • @chr: I've edited the question and now it's on-topic (motivations aside, there has to be some difference for the story to be true at all). – Sklivvz Jul 12 '11 at 13:17
  • @Thomas: also console and PC versions of games are not at all identical. – vartec Jul 12 '11 at 14:11
  • one must also consider that xbox live online play is a pay service both for money making and control purposes. Windows, currently, is not. So there are other non-mouse0and-keyboard reasons. Hacking is a bigger issue on the PC, and there is very little recourse. – horatio Jul 12 '11 at 14:14
  • @horatio: hacking is actually **less** of an issue on PC, as first of all there are dedicated servers with admins, secondly there are services like PunkBuster which are very effective. – vartec Jul 12 '11 at 14:42
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    the live service can pull your account for ALL games, this is the recourse I was referring to. Playing on punkbuster enabled servers is almost always a client-side option. I think one would be insane to pick non-punkbuster servers. I would certainly disagree about the amount of hacking on each platform, but the point isn't whether hacking happens, but that the decision by Microsoft re: interoperability probably takes into account things beyond controller schemes. – horatio Jul 12 '11 at 17:38
  • @horatio; On console there's more reason to not hack, on PC there are better protections against hackers. Which one results in the best experience I couldn't tell you, but they're different enough approaches I don't think you can directly compare them. – Phoshi Jul 13 '11 at 09:00
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    I can tell you: I have a ridiculous gamerscore and I've been playing pc multiplayer since it was possible. As I said: this is all BESIDE THE POINT: the point was that there are more reasons other than a controller layout to consider. – horatio Jul 13 '11 at 13:37
  • @horatio provided everything else is the same, a mouse+keyboard player will win over a controller player. There are genres that fit controllers, and shooters aren't in the list. Ask any game designer, they will tell you that autoaim is a prerequisite for using controllers in FPS games (On consoles, good luck with that on PC). Controllers lack both speed and precision, the 2 most important qualities for FPS games. – kotekzot May 06 '12 at 12:11
  • go back and reread what I wrote. I said that regarding interoperability between pc and console, there are OTHER reasons to consider besides controller schemes. You can disagree about that of course, but your comment in this light is pretty ridiculous and misses the point entirely. – horatio May 08 '12 at 13:55

1 Answers1

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I don't know if this is the reason MS made this decision, but I do know that there are numerous videos on the Internet for products that let you connect a keyboard and mouse to an XBox 360.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnZvrjv1_JI

http://xim3.com/?page_id=185

The videos are being used as advertising for the product itself, however, so take that with a grain of salt. The motion of the video does seem like keyboard and mouse to me instead of controller, however. That said, I know of no direct competition between equally skilled players. The player in these videos may simply be highly skilled and playing against relatively unskilled players.

Bacon Bits
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  • I have used one of these things. They're rather horrible, and really don't feel like a genuine mouse. Now, this may have just been a particularly crappy adapter, but YMMV. – Fake Name Sep 11 '11 at 13:42
  • This would be good as a comment, if you give an answer please provide good references for it. – nico May 06 '12 at 10:11
  • Connect a keyboard to the XBox? Well, there are those ports out front, and the console works with a USB keyboard just fine (haven't tried with a mouse). – Piskvor left the building May 07 '12 at 12:29