the use of a mouse and keyboard on consoles in competitive play

one of the big issues between the PC and Console crowd is the use of a mouse/keyboard setup vs the gamepad. but the thing is, that shouldn't be a big decider, as you can hook up a mouse and keyboard to an xbox.

so i'm curious, is it legal for a player to use a mouse/keyboard in console shooter competitions?
if not, how would allowing this control scheme affect the XBox comp scene?
if so, why don't more xbox competitors use it?

i'm a PC gamer, so i'll admit i'm biased toward the mouse/keyboard.  but even though PC gamers use that as a pro-PC argument, it really isn't.  if a large enough market share of the xbox player base decides that they prefer a mouse and a keyboard, it's easy enough to just set that up.

i really, really don't want this to become a PC vs. Console argument.  i'm just curious about how this control setup would affect consoles.

not much... the only difference is faster cursor movement and settings usually go up high enough. joystick is more accurate because most console games are slower than something like UT, quake, or CS

they have AutoAim coded in alot of the console games... so that playing with analog sticks is possible.. don't believe me.. sit in a spot on a game and have an enemy walk by.. i bet your reticle will slightly follow

KB/M peripherals have been around for a while, but just now are they starting to get really good..  Newer generations of KB/M peripherals for console have eliminated input lag and deadzone issues that older models have..  Auto Aim is coded into a lot of games, but can be turned off on many games.. Acceleration is still an issue however, as developers still put all sorts of wacky acceleration in console games to make them playable with thumbsticks..

KB/M peripherals are not illegal unless there are rules against them such as on Gamebattles and probably MLG..

The reason most competitive console players probably don't use KB/M is that if they are good enough to be playing competitively with a controller, they have probably invested thousands of hours in improving thier controller skills..  I know people that use these devices and are at LVL 50 in Halo and a 3:1 K/D ratio in COD so once these catch on, I'm betting more people will start using them competitively..

lol the article was published back in 2006. Like larry said, using a controller is extremly difficult and takes a lot longer to get good at. A lot of the people spent majority of their time getting good at the controller instead of playing the actual fps game 

In my opinion, the controller doesn't take that much time to get used to if you haven't used a different type of controller beforehand. I adapted from a switch from PS2 to 360 in a matter of days, and I haven't met anyone who spent time learning how to use a new controller. It comes easy to most, but a switch from KB/M to controller or the reverse is probably much harder to get used to. A couple months ago I tried going back to Battlefield 2142 and realized that I had lost all of my ability to aim, and ultimately didn't really continue.

The main thing I hate about controllers is the turning speed. If I set it too low, I can't turn around too good, but If I set it too fast, I'll turn the weapon way to fast and end up loosing complete control. I was never able to find the perfect sensitivity and thats why I stopped playing console for a while