When we look back on our childhoods, we often fondly remember blissful moments of play and the joys of experiencing play with others that grew up alongside us. For some of a certain age, those memories of play likely involve video games. From unwrapping a PlayStation 2 on Christmas morning when I was 8 to having Mario Kart tournaments with my friends in college at 19, some of the most fun moments of my life, including up to the present day, have involved video games.
For most of us that play or have played video games, I imagine that there are a few aspects we rarely, if ever, have considered: the ability to pick up a controller, press buttons, view the screen, and hear the music and sounds of the gameplay. We’ve taken for granted our bodies’ capabilities to operate, interact with, and ingest the game. We forget that without these physical abilities, we likely wouldn’t be able to play at all. This is a reality that many people with disabilities, both children and adults, experience every day.
Over 40 million Americans live with a disability1, and for many in that group their disability may only have a minor effect on their life, but for many others, their disabilities can interfere with every moment of their existence, sometimes making self-care and independent living impossible. For those in situations as this, playing and enjoying video games has long seemed a difficult to impossible feat, but new technology is coming closer to bringing the joy of gaming to all players, regardless of ability.
The Microsoft Adaptive Controller
In September 2018, Microsoft, in collaboration with Special Effect, a British technology organization that works to develop ways to help physically-handicap children play video games, released the Xbox Adaptive Controller to the market. This controller is designed to allow persons with disabilities to customize its input layout and scheme to best fit their specific needs. The main body of the system contains two large touch-sensitive buttons and a touch-sensitive directional pad while the back features nineteen ports that allow for different attachments to be added to suit the players’ individual needs. These attachments include a foot pedal and motion controller, two different programmable joysticks, individual finger and toe switches, and even a device known as a QuadStick which allows individuals with quadriplegia to control the game by biting an interactive mouthpiece and breathing into a specially engineered straw2.
The controller and its many attachments were no easy feat to produce. Development started in 2015, when a team of engineers at Microsoft’s gaming division began working on a prototype controller to improve the accessibility of video game inputs. After two years of extensive trials, redesigns, and improvements, Microsoft decided to turn the prototype into a product and began reaching out to manufacturers and nonprofit groups that focus on video gaming accessibility, like Special Effect. By leveraging Special Effect’s experience working with people with disabilities, Microsoft engineers and computer programmers finished and released the product in 20183, and it is already being used and enjoyed by gamers worldwide.
(Image Credit: Microsoft)
Hurdles to Overcome
Though praised for its innovation and technical prowess, the cost of the controller has been a source of concern for some critics.
The main body of the Adaptive Controller costs a modest $99.99, but the true expense is realized with the attachments, the most expensive being the QuadStick device priced at $549.004 with most of the other attachments hovering around $65.005. While true that not every player will need every attachment, with some only needing one or two, it’s important to consider the fact that those with disabilities and their families often have lower-than-average incomes when thinking of the future viability of this technology.
(Image Credit: Austin American-Statesman)
Additionally, due to the sheer range and diversity of disabilities, there will be a number of players that won’t be able to use the controller in a way that meets their needs despite the wealth of attachments and possible configurations. “We tried to get a range of the types of people that we might work with, but within that, everyone is so different, and it’s hard to get as wide a range as possible.” says Bill Donegan, a Microsoft developer6.
Looking to the Future
Despite already having made monumental strides for the greater community of gamers with disabilities, Microsoft and other developers already have their eyes on the future. “More peripherals will be made for the controller and there will be more options. The controller has a lot of flexibility, and hopefully we’ll pick up on how other people are using it and it’ll give us some ideas.” says Donegan.
Gamers around the world hope that Xbox’s innovation inspires other companies such as Nintendo and Sony to develop their own inclusive hardware; noting that competition in the market would fuel new discoveries, lower prices, and ultimately create more options for gamers to play their preferred way. “As the community comes up with solutions themselves and starts sharing them, that’ll feed peoples’ ideas of what they might be able to try for themselves.” Donegan notes.
It’s exciting to see technological innovation employed in this way. Video games hold a special place in the hearts of many as a way to have fun, enriching experiences both alone and, more importantly, with friends. To know that people who were previously excluded from playing games now have access to them through new technologies is incredible, and it only expands the possibilities for the future innovation. No matter what I can manage to say about it though, I believe this quote7 sums it up even better:
“No matter how your body is or how fast you are, you can play… It’s a really good thing to have in this world.” – Owen Sirmons