This is great
Limited mobility gamers are an underserved segment of the video game-playing populace. There are controllers out there to serve different needs but they’re often highly-specific, in short supply, and/or prohibitively expensive. Xbox just took a giant step toward eliminating those concerns.
As we first learned about in a leak earlier this week, Microsoft has developed an adaptive controller that’s made to suit a broad range of physical limitations. It’s approximately 11-inches long and 6-inches wide, and it’s lightweight so as to cause as little strain as possible when holding it. It has two large buttons that can be mapped to any buttons on a normal Xbox One controller, a d-pad, a toggle for three custom button layouts, and two USB ports (one on each side).
However, it’s the back of the accessibility controller that’s truly special. Back there are 19 3.5mm ports, one for each input on an Xbox One controller. This is where players can plug in their existing controllers to instantly have it mapped to the correct function. In this sense, the adaptive controller is both a controller and a switch. It’s meant to immediately cater to an individual’s specific needs with as little hassle as possible.
Xbox has collaborated with a lot of people to make sure this controller would be as inclusive as possible. Non-profits AbleGamers Charity, The Cerebral Palsy Foundation, Craig Hospital, SpecialEffect, and Warfighter Engaged all helped in an advisory and playtesting capacity. There are also a number of third-party peripheral manufacturers whose accessibility devices have been made compatible; PDP’s One-Handed Joystick for the Xbox Adaptive Controller, Logitech’s Extreme 3D Pro Joystick, and Quadstick’s Game Controller were all specifically mentioned but Xbox says there are more partner devices.
The Xbox Adaptive Controller will release later this year for $100.
Accessibility Gaming with the Xbox Adaptive Controller [Xbox Wire]
