Official QWERTY keyboard attachment coming to 360 controllers

Mute Xbox 360 gamers with fat hands and tiny fingers, rejoice!

It seems an official attachable keyboard for the 360 controller is on the way. Gamespot, who post the story earlier today, has since yanked the post. Still, the eyes and ears of the internet are not easily deceived.

From their MIA story:

While Microsoft's Xbox 360 Spring Update will integrate Windows Live Messenger into the system's dashboard for cross-platform chatting, the machine's text-window interface for standard control pads makes lengthy conversations a chore.

To ease the task of typing in messages without the aid of a full-sized keyboard, Microsoft today announced a new text input device for the Xbox 360 controller. The attachment snaps onto the bottom of the controller through the headset jack and features a QWERTY-style key layout with 47 keys.

This is not the first time we've seen this attachment, as it originally appeared on a slide show during a Microsoft presentation back in 2005. While a price has yet to be announced (neither has the peripheral, for that matter...), Gamespot mentioned a summer release date. You know, before the magical PR fairy came and yanked the story.

Oops.

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