This comment was written with screen dictation so apologies if it reads like someone has said it out loud.
This is fantastic news. I'm making assumption about the design here, because it only has one control stick. You need two of these, one for them left joystick and one for the right joystick. That's actually even better, if that is the case, because it means you can put the two control stick as far away from each other as possible if you want that set up. You could even buy a third of controller button with your foot. I hope that is the case.
I just like to call out Nintendo here for complete lack of disability access. There is no support for disabled controllers whatsoever for a Nintendo switch and it's shocking from Nintendo. You have to buy some very expensive third-party gear if you want to have any sort of disabled access for the Nintendo switch.
You can get an adapter like the Mayfair Magic NS and hook up an Xbox adaptive controller. Yeah it's an extra $20 it maybe shouldn't be but on the plus side you can then share the controller among a PC/Xbox/Switch.
“Non-standard controllers” being devices that basically amount to cheating, either giving you mouse+kb input with controller aim assist, or giving you access to things like recoil compensation scripts.
The issue with using mouse+kd on consoles is if it's done using a 3rd party device then the console can't detect it and aim assist can still be used.
If the game natively supports mouse+kd then that is fine but if you are using mouse+kd with aim assist turned on then you are basicaly using an aimbot to cheat.
You can also pair this with a DualSense controller.
I saw a video of a man using this with one limb and the analog stick on a "regular" controller with another. He said it worked perfectly for their use.
I was assuming there was a way to configure a button that would toggle the stick between left and right, since most games I've played don't require using both at once.[1] I don't see a conclusive answer in their online docs, though, and looking at the layout and parts, I don't see a tag or other way to assign that hypothetical function.
It would be unfortunate if sending right stick messages really does require buying a whole separate controller. The rest of the product seems almost unbelievably thoughtful and well-designed.
Regardless, hopefully they used Hall effect sensors for the stick this time, because drift is frustrating enough on a regular PS5 controller. Imagine having to buy a whole new Access Controller every time you fail your saving throw on stick drift.
[1] e.g. one is for movement, the other is for manual camera control.
There are probably some people who only have enough motor function to use one joystick, and then use other, custom input devices to assign to other buttons or potentiometers.
If you’re interested in this kind of thing, do check out The Controller Project who have been providing free (or almost free) custom controller modifications to gamers for over a decade:
https://thecontrollerproject.com/
It’s still very unfortunate that these platforms don’t just let people use custom USB inputs, instead of asking people to buy stuff over and over. There are obviously things that won’t work as well, but this is acceptable in many circumstances!
They want to milk console accessories to all extent, making a PC-like universal port would nullify that. It's why they are rather put in the money to make a first party solution for this use case.
This is often called the "curb cut effect" and is part of the principles of universal design. The most obvious other example is closed captions, which have become so widely used that it's hard to remember that only a few years ago hardly any videos had them
I wish modern "closed captions" were accurate. It is one thing to have a computer screw up voice recognition on a live broadcast. It is another thing to allow the same on a prerendered video in which somebody has a chance to check the input and the output.
No I mean English subs on original English audio in new videos. I have my own rants about "localization" which aren't relevant here but I will offer you some jelly donuts in exchange.
Something I'd like them to clarify is what happens when Playstation 6 comes out. Will users be able to use their PS5 controllers, including the accessibility controllers, or will they be forced to buy it all over again?
Their track record is horrible in that sense. You can use PS4 controllers on PS5 but not for PS5 games, so they don't even have the "technical reasons" excuse.
I would assume that this is completely PS5-specific. I've really liked the overall PlayStation experience ever since the PS2, but I think part of the reason everything works so smoothly is that every generation is a pretty strict walled garden.[1] Not having a compatibility layer to upconvert PS4 controller input to mimic a PS5 controller removes a whole branch of code, testing/user troubleshooting steps/bug fixing, and complexity.
I'm genuinely surprised that Sony built and released an accessible controller at all. This feels like a huge step for them. So while it might be frustrating to imagine having to upgrade when the PS6 comes out in the distant future, it's still a net positive IMO.
[1] I'm still a little grumpy that I couldn't use the PS3 media remote with the PS4 or later, because it worked better than the ones that came after.
> Not having a compatibility layer to upconvert PS4 controller input to mimic a PS5 controller removes a whole branch of code, testing/user troubleshooting steps/bug fixing, and complexity.
> No more fears of developing carpal tunnel for me.
Unfortunately, I developed major RSI in my right hand from playing Horizon Forbidden West, to the point that I had to stop playing console games for several months. And I don’t typically have that problem on any other console, including previous PS consoles.
There’s something about the shape of the controller in combination with the controls for that game, which requires frequent usage of both R triggers, sometimes in combination with other buttons. Also could be related to the force feedback of the triggers that’s new on PS5 (though it doesn’t seem frequent/strong enough to matter).
I never had this same problem with Horizon Zero Dawn on the PS4, even though the controls are mostly the same.
I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish Forbidden West.
One popular Twitch streamer after hurting his hand badly on a punch machine played Elden Ring on a regular PS5 controller with only his left hand, and he got pretty far.
The best time to do this was when the console launched, the second best time is now.
As a MSFT employee in Gaming we get accessibility put front and center in our faces often and even then it can easily be "best effort" or almost ignored if you aren't careful. I am really happy more and more games are getting on board with solid accessibility settings and peripherals that can bring the joy of games to more and more people. Gaming is such a magical medium of entertainment and engagement that everyone should be able to enjoy it.
To be fair there are more and more devices on the market that are made to assist cheaters.[1][2][3] Banning third party controllers will even the playing field for all players of competitive games. Besides Microsoft obviously wants to monopolize their overly expensive controllers. Microsoft themselves have already made Adaptive Controller which isn't too expensive and supports a wide range of external devices. You can think what you want about the ban but you can't frame it as them banning accessibility devices specifically.
On the Playstation side they use remote play to avoid detection. Sony has some old devices they no longer patch that can still be used as remote play clients (PS Vita/TV) which may or may not be impacted if they patched that vector.
MS only does things if there’s a financial reason and not any sort of altruism. You lose out on sales if your game doesn’t have controller support - through which is the only way many people can play games. Meanwhile there’s “accessibility” in the rest of the company.
This sort of simplistic thinking is indicative of a person that’s just…never been part of a much larger whole before? You’re actually giving Microsoft immense credit with your claim that an organisation with such a high head count could converge so highly on reasoning to do something. In reality, in any large organisation, anything that happens, happens almost by happenstance. Someone was sick for that meeting and didn’t get a chance to make a case for their alternative pet project. Someone has a disability that would benefit from using this controller. Someone saw the market value. Blah blah blah.
The way some people talk about tech companies sounds a whole lot like the way that people talk about celebrities. It’s absurd.
It's the same with countries. I've heard conspiracies where the whole of NATO has put Zelensky as a puppet president in Ukraine so they could start a war with Russia for political gain or something like that, I don't remember the conspiracy having a real motif.
Just so I understand this right, you're saying that the only reason Microsoft designs and releases accessible controllers is because they make money off it? I don't think that's right, given how much they have to invest in it and how small the market is.
All these companies only ever do things for financial reasons. Enabling all people to use your serivce or device or website is a win-win.
Sony doesn't sell the Playstation as an act of charity. They do it to let people give them money for things they enjoy using. Likewise for these types of accessories.
On the topic of Microsoft having done this far in advance of Sony; I recall (perhaps incorrectly) that Satya has an autistic child.
I wonder if a leader that has to personally, in their daily lives, deal with an individual who requires assistive technologies imparts a level of empathy to their organization… which led to Microsoft taking a lead in this?
I have observed the same anecdotally, where the personal effect on the leader led them to provide more empathy and time to employees through policy changes.
But conversely, I've also seen our prime minister get covid, come close to dying, and it did nothing to stem the cruelty and disregard that they proceeded to maintain out for the next few years.
There seems to be more focus on accessibility in Microsoft products since Satya took over as CEO. For instance, now there's a section dubbed "Accessibility" in the bottom bar in MS Office.
It's box-ticking accessibility, not truely increasing accessibility. Ask yourself how much of the MS site is usable in a text-only browser, or even one that merely has JS turned off.
That's why I'm saying it's box-ticking. Simple HTML is more accessible to everyone. That includes those with screenreaders and other content extraction/reformatting tools.
My understanding is all modern screenreaders (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, etc.) handle JS websites perfectly fine and modern accessibility standards in JS are much more than box-ticking.
I'm a fan of simple HTML, too-but I don't believe it has any real impact on accessibility over JS with accessibility in mind. If there are specific cases where that is not true, I'd love to know them
If you think it's confusing to have a page change while you're reading it with your eyes, imagine what that would do to someone who can't see and relies on a screenreader telling them.
JS issues with accessibility is not inherent to the JS compatibility itself with the browser.
It’s much more that JS tends to make your page being modified in unexpected ways. If all you have is a voice reading the page, you may be submerged by information each time the dom changes and you may have a hard time understanding what is the context of the element which changed.
The last time I opened the Accessibility tab in powerpoint, it was full of reminders to add alt text for images and other things like that. It seems meaningful. Is all of that stuff meaningless?
Office has some useful accessibility features but there are obvious features missing. For example, Word will read aloud documents, which is great. There is a shortcut to bring up relevant controls but I couldn't find a shortcut to resume reading after I edited the text. There also doesn't seem to be a way for it to read comments. Ultimately, you need to use a screen reader.
I'm kind of astonished at the (initial?) negativity in this thread. Sony releases a controller for handicapped users. Assuming it doesn't have basic design flaws, what is there to be negative about?
It doesn’t have a full set of controls/inputs that the standard controller has. Most notably you need a regular controller or a second adaptive controller if you want to play any game that uses both control sticks. That’s a lot of games that are completely unplayable with this device
The writer says that their experience with the controller was pretty bad. It was clunky to set up and almost unusable for many games. The article more or less concludes on "hey, at least they tried." I, for one, have higher standards for multibillion dollar megacorps.
Those effort are always a bit iffy since those very same companies go to great length to lock third party controllers out of their ecosystem, as well as fail to support even their very own controllers from previous console generations.
If real accessibility would be the goal, they could just open up their ecosystem and make proper use of USB and Bluetooth so everybody can build their own controller and keep using them across console generations as well as consoles from different manufacturers.
To me it seems to have some basic design flaws. As the (disabled) author said, there's no right stick and thus most games are completely unplayable. He'd rather just have the ability to remap the buttons on a normal controller.
Compared to the adaptive xbox controller this thing looks absolutely useless to me.
> Compared to the adaptive xbox controller this thing looks absolutely useless to me.
The XBox adaptive controller doesn't have sticks either. The two big touchpad-looking things are just two big digital buttons without any touchpad functionality. The Xbox adaptive controller really isn't much of a controller by itself, but just a large hub where you can plug accessories into via USB for sticks and 3.5mm jacks for buttons.
The console has been out for w couple of years. Why not design it during design of the console? Isn't there already an accessible PS4 controller? Is that not compatible with PS5? (No idea, honest question) and if it's not compatible, then why?
I’m still waiting for the first ps5 controller that doesn’t break from controller drag after 10-14 months. Seriously, there needs to be a class action at this point.
Controllers that use hall effect sensor sticks last much longer than the conventional potentiometer sticks. The pot sticks are subject to physical wear while the hall effect sticks are not because there is no contact.
There's some guides on aftermarket modifications of controllers to convert them to hall effect sensors, as well as 3rd party controllers made with hall effect sticks. If you want something to use on PC and/or switch the KingKong 2[1] from GuliKit is pretty good.
ALPS makes the hardware for the joysticks the major console companies use. They are cheap and work great -- except they have a really really short half-life. Even the Xbox Pro Controller (which is like $200) uses them which is crazy.
I'm guessing it makes financial sense to keep using them so nothing changes.
Hall effect joysticks are becoming more popular but they're usually harder to get ahold of and may not actually be that much better in the long run. Time will tell!
Change of dead zone. Modern controllers have smaller dead zones and more accurate sticks. So when they start breaking down they pickup more phantom movements. Switch joycons are more likely because of the size of the stick (need less dead zone because size).
Yeah, a PS2 controller has a graveyard at the center when compared to a PS5 or series controller, just grab a cheap USB controller from Amazon and use some tool to see the precision of modern controllers.
That said, unless conventional sticks get way cheaper I'll stick to hall effect ones.
I can’t speak for controllers, but for wireless mice I’ve read that many issues are due to the very low voltages that they run at to extend battery life - the low voltage means that buttons + etc become much more susceptible to dirt and oxidization.
They all use the same hardware in the joysticks and have been for years (maybe since 90s). there must have been a defective version made along the way, but it's not an easy nor cost effective repair.
I would wager it comes down to more precise readings. You could theoretically use the same hardware for the stick itself but be getting much higher precision readings, which would mean that drift is much more apparent.
Same with Xbox One/Series controllers. Never had issues with Original Xbox controllers (maybe after 2 years) but I've had ~5 Xbox One controllers with stick drift and other issues within a year (first-party and third-party).
I wouldn't mind it so much if the controllers were a third of the price they currently charge, although getting a new controller all the time still means a lot of unnecessary trash and more of my time spent cracking open each replacement to pull out the microphones.
Walmart sells controllers with a $4 3 year warranty that they claim covers everything. I’m going that route this time and will see what happens in 12 months when it breaks.
The way it typically works is you go out aiming for a specific lifetime in button presses and study the ones that come back from QA after dying around that mark.
Looking at the pictures I don't understand who this is for? I immediately understand looking at Xbox's accessible controller who it's for and how to use it.
The button layout on this thing seems harder to use than a normal controller for most people other than those with extremely limited fine muscle control?
My father has one arm, and one finger on said arm. I don't see how this is going to help him at all.
> But designing accessibility products is a massive task, as every disabled person's impairment is unique to them, and gaming technology is always evolving.
Sony's plan to tackle this problem is through customisation - making it possible for each person to tailor the solution to their own individual requirements.
Designing UX stuff for disabled people is surprisingly hard. There's a huge array of disabilities and non-disabled designers can't fathom the challenges by themselves so I can imagine it's a very lengthy iterative process.
It was also probably never a huge priority for Sony until the X-box released their own and showed there's a market for them.
＞ I can imagine it's a very lengthy iterative process
Yes. I think that's where it really matters to have something out in the world, even if it doesn't cover the full spectrum, so they get feedback on what sticks and what doesn't. Sure they can make the round of disabled people in their vicinity, and get some help for those wanting to engage with the dev process, but that can't be comparable to real world users actually getting their hands on a product.
On Sony's priorities, they've made so much research on input I hope they find a way to merge the two and have the feedback from one side help the development of the other "traditional" methods. Some games had custom controllers basically purpose built, so they're not strangers to doing stuff that doesn't scale that much either.
(Edit: original response was to a pithy "it's hard". Commenter added context after the fact so I am adding context to mine):
No it isn't. Unless the company doing the designing isn't serious about it. Exactly of companies who are serious about inclusive design are Apple, and if you want gaming Microsoft. How are they serious?
- hire people with disabilities across the board so input happens at all phases of product development
- include people with disabilities during product and focus group testing
- bake inclusive design as part of their process
- hire people with disabilities in QA/QC
So, yes it's difficult if you have one person saying "make this thing inclusive otherwise we might get sued". It's not difficult if the organization is serious about inclusive design
Apple isn't serious about inclusive design in hardware. Their software UX leads are some of the most brilliant figures in the fight for accessible computing, but their hardware is almost universally bad for accessibility. For people with sufficiently-advanced dyskinesia, even the most generous software accessibility settings aren't super helpful. It took them thirteen major releases of their operating system to offer pointer events using external hardware, broken pointer events, which was more or less the only way in which people with motor disabilities could make the system usable at all.
If Apple is an example of disabled people in an organization being serious about inclusive design in a way that is "easy," then that reflects incredibly poorly on the disabled engineers and designers working at Apple and the possibilities of inclusive design as a liberating force.
People at Microsoft worked hard on the Adaptive Controller. It was hard, and it took years. It is an incredible feat of empathy in engineering.
i must confess i did not have a good definition of dyskinesia in my mind but reading briefly i absolutely can get why apple hardware would be awful with dyskinesia; as much as i love the apple trackpads i still sometimes get cursor jumps or accidental clicks with the touch to click option enabled; im sure there are other elements that introduce frustration also but that one i can relate to fast.
i have heard high praise for apple with their accessibility settings and my colleagues and friend who use these options seem to like them, so there’s something. really hope that the hardware focus continues to get traction as just “something that should be done” not as a new revenue stream. i thjnk proper accessibility and customization serves everyone, not just those with disabilities [0]. technology should be adaptable to any given user, not the other way around.
0 - i’m actually not sure if this is right wording but my brain struggles to know the preferred term. i am happy to have a better way to describe people with disabilities
'Disabled', in particular, has two differing politically charged usages and definitions. That is, whether one is disabled by their impairments or by society. It surprises most people that the latter is "more correct", being the Unesco[0] definition. It's also the more empathetic, in my opinion.
There are many opinions about this, and there is no collective preferred term.
Thank you this was a nice read and it's useful to understand that it's a very personal topic.
Another book I have read explained the "person first" approach to describing disabilities, and it makes sense as I can see how it's very much so on dependent on the individual preferences.
Everything Microsoft did with Xbox long before Sony?
If we focus purely on the console gaming market, Microsoft did a lot for disabled people. Multiple different controllers and systems were released this generation.
It's important to remember that Microsoft has been making PC input devices and gaming peripherals (and decent ones at that) all the way back since the '90s.
Microsoft gets a lot of well deserved flack, but their peripherals were almost always top notch, in line with Logitech or even better. Remember their ergonomic split keyboards form the '90s?
Maybe some of that UX design heritage rubbed off to the X-box as well.
Having briefly worked on the xbox 360 accessories team, I honestly think it is just because the people there really care.
From what I (indirectly) understand, the Microsoft accessories team (keyboards, mice, etc) has been dismantled and reformed a number of times.
The XB1 controller is an extra odd situation, the team who was the Xbox 360 accessories team made the initial XB1 controller, and then that team became the Microsoft Band team, and an entire different team took over console controllers.
I wasn't there for the 360 controller's design, but I'd assume MS hired external companies to assist with some of the industrial design work.
The xbox org in general had a very high rate of contractor/vendor usage, I saw plenty of projects (including the one I was on) that had well over 50% of employees as vendors.
The design team I worked with was also a mix of MS employees and external designers, which makes a lot of sense.
I can tell you that in regards to the Xbox 1 controller, Microsoft employees spent a lot of time showing love and care to it, those buttons and control sticks got a ton of critique from people who really care about gaming. I remember one particular test session for haptic feedback settings, everyone there wanted to make damned sure that if you were driving over gravel in Forza that it felt like you were really driving over gravel.
I can speak more to the Microsoft Band. The springs on the buttons were iterated on for months, with dozens upon dozens of combinations of springs and button materials being tested to find what felt just right, down to the exact shape of the indent on the button.
Every single letter for the font was hand kerned. Heck the font was customized for our exact display (DPI, font weights, letter heights, everything). My team worked with Monotype to get real TrueType font rendering working in 96mhz and 256KB of RAM (and a slow 4MB scratch buffer). Real antialiasing, full CJK support, when Microsoft wants to pay attention to details they can do a really damn good job of paying attention to the details.
Xbox was (is, I presume, haven't been there in a long time!) an entire technical org that was passionate from top to bottom about making the best products.
The PlayStation also dates to the 90s, years before Xbox was a thing. Sony is a tech company far older than MS that specializes in hardware and design. They invented entire categories of device with novel ux(the Walkman).
If they wanted to do this earlier, they could have.
And Microsoft did it nearly 30 years after Nintendo released their Hands Free Controller.
There's no need to attempt to diminish what Sony is doing. Anything that improves the quality of life for people that have been previously excluded should be applauded. Even if they took longer than others.
I agree that saying “Microsoft did it already” is a silly response to something that is just a positive to gaming. But your example of Nintendo doesn’t really mean anything when Nintendo didn’t put a lot of effort in supporting disabled people the last generations.
I applaud Nintendo for doing this for the NES, but where are they today?
>But your example of Nintendo doesn’t really mean anything when Nintendo didn’t put a lot of effort in supporting disabled people the last generations.
Because it's not an example of Nintendo being good, it's an example of why this reductive argument is meaningless.
So? What does this comparison add to the table? Is it somehow bad to create the same thing for a different platform? Did you also write on Google Chrome thread when it launched "4 years after Firefox"? It just sounds demeaning. I for one don't care what Xbox has or doesn't have, I like my PS, and I'm happy that people with disabilities can also game on PS now if they'd want to do so.
Uh.. the review where the disabled gamer mentions that he can’t play the game that needs 2 thumb sticks because the controller only had 1. It’s stated clearly in the article.
It's merely a reminder that they didn't think of it first and aren't trailblazing anything.
There have been many community controllers but I believe MS was the first to try to make a real consumer product that serves disabilities without DIY stuff. Kind of an odd stunt and a tiny market, but it appears to have made some splashes.
Sure we can 'just be happy', but we can also acknowledge that Sony didn't care about it until Microsoft did something about it. Same as they didn't care about motion controls until Nintendo busted out the Wii. Both MS and Sony scrambled to put out motion shit the next few years.
I’m not from the us, so just watched it. It’s very surprising to me that such a coarse ad would show to so many people. To me ( and I have kids ) it feels instantly very very wrong.
While I appreciate ms now makes a controller for people with disabilities ( it’s great ) , I don’t like the fact they’re making ads about them. In the grand scheme of things, their involvement with disabled people is tiny, and this ad just makes me feel very very strongly they’re taking advantage of these kids because the ad isn’t about the kids it’s about ms .
I might be missing something here, either culturally ( I’m not American and have different concerns) or something else altogether. Could someone help me here see through this ?
Edit ( I’ve thought about it a bit more, this ad is very disturbing to me): in my country ( France), I think this would be immediately perceived as a megacorp exploiting kids ( we don’t trust megacorps and this looks like a Pr stunt)
To be fair they did actually make the adaptive controller and you can buy it right now. It isn't even that expensive. They really did make gaming more accessible for many.
As a company that is something you'd be proud of and your marketing department would be stupid not to show it off. I still thinking it wouldn't be as well received in my country (Netherlands) either, especially if played during something like the super bowl.
This device Sony has made here in comparison really does feel like a little PR stunt, because it looks absolutely useless compared to xbox's adaptive controller. It includes just one stick that's still an actual joystick... The adaptive controller has two large pads for sticks and allows you to connect any external device to act as an additional input. I am curious how far Sony will take this.
This is fantastic news. I'm making assumption about the design here, because it only has one control stick. You need two of these, one for them left joystick and one for the right joystick. That's actually even better, if that is the case, because it means you can put the two control stick as far away from each other as possible if you want that set up. You could even buy a third of controller button with your foot. I hope that is the case.
I just like to call out Nintendo here for complete lack of disability access. There is no support for disabled controllers whatsoever for a Nintendo switch and it's shocking from Nintendo. You have to buy some very expensive third-party gear if you want to have any sort of disabled access for the Nintendo switch.