Microsoft has been working to improve the Xbox One’s value proposition through offering features like backwards compatibility and the ability to stream games from the Xbox One to Windows 10 devices. Now the company is planning to add PC keyboard and mouse support to the Xbox One. With these features, one of the last significant differentiations between the Xbox One and a standard PC will vanish.

As bit-tech.net details, Phil Spencer responded to a question about whether or not users would be able to stream from a Windows machine to an Xbox One with the following:

To be clear, you can already use a USB mouse and keyboard with an Xbox One, but not for gaming. Windows 10 streaming, for now, is also a one-way affair. If Microsoft brings this feature to Xbox One, it opens the door to a great many options, including the ability to play online against PC users without worrying that PC gamers will have an intrinsic advantage thanks to superior controls and pixel-perfect mousing. While I realize there are gamers who don’t like playing with a mouse and keyboard, there’s no contest as to which method of input offers greater precision. Unlike controllers, a mouse is capable of pinpoint accuracy, while keyboards offer a much greater range of commands and inputs.

More generally, the addition of Windows streaming to an Xbox One could allow for smooth play across a home network without dragging a PC out to the living room. It could be used to easily blow up a spreadsheet or Word document from a smaller Windows 10 device or laptop. Heck, with keyboard and mouse support, Microsoft could actually release certain applications for the platform. Don’t mistake me — I don’t think anyone is going to buy an Xbox One just to load Office on it — but an Xbox One that can run Office in addition to having a web browser and gaming capabilities could actually replace a desktop PC in many people’s homes. Even if its primarily an entertainment device, the option to load applications or data could still come in handy.

How’s backwards compatibility coming along?

Microsoft’s backwards compatibility announcement was one of the big events at E3 this year and the company wasn’t always certain it could be done. In an interview with Xbox Wire, Mike Ybarra, Xbox director of program management, said, “We knew it would be an enormous engineering challenge, and many people told us it would be impossible,” Ybarra said in an interview with Xbox Wire. “However, the team had conviction, and delivered. This is what I love most about Xbox: We’re all gamers, and fan feedback fuels our passion.”

To be fair, however, early reports on the state of compatibility indicated the company has a long, long way to go. According to Eurogamer’s tests, the Mass Effect conversion the Xbox One forces V-Sync on in all cases, where the Xbox 360 didn’t. This eliminates screen tearing, but it introduces a new problem — by forcing V-Sync on in all cases, the game runs as much as 30% slower on the newer console. According to their testing, the frame rate can dip as low as 10 FPS in spots. They observed similar problems in Perfect Dark Zero, though in that case, the average frame rate was still better overall.

Undoubtedly Ybarra and his team will continue working on the problem, but unless there’s a way to clean things up in the game code itself, it may never run well. Backwards compatibility is the kind of feature that sounds amazing but the devil’s in the details. Right now, Microsoft still has a lot of details to work out.