Earlier this year at CES, Sony revealed something they called "Project Leonardo"--a customizable gamepad that was designed to help those with disabilities have a more comfortable gaming experience. Now that a few months have gone by, Sony is ready to show off more about the project, which is now officially titled the PlayStation Access controller. The Access consists of two flat wheels of buttons, and an adjacent analog stick. There are various types of analog sticks that you can use with the controller, ranging from standard to dome, to arcade stick, along with five different styles of buttons, such as pillow button caps, flat button, wide button, overhang button, and curve button caps. These all can be switched out depending on the need of the user.

On the PlayStation 5 itself, you'll be able to change the stick sensitivity, adjust the dead zone, and remap the buttons. There is currently no release date or pricing information about the Access controller.

Source

 

[Scarlet]

Oh now that is a win. Great to see Sony move into this space after Microsoft have had this kinda thing for a while now.

Have to wonder whether Nintendo will come up with something eventually. I guess some of the more notable features would be harder to adapt though.

 

[Bladexdsl]

too much big buttons

 

[Noctosphere]

too much big buttons

some peoples need those big button

 

[Deleted member 194275]

The price will tell if they are really worried about disabled people.

The xbox solution here where I'm at is always unavailable and costs half of a Series S. So that's how much they give a fuck.

(please note that in a huge number of countries those devices have expressive tax cuts)

 

[ldeveraux]

The price will tell if they are really worried about disabled people.

This is the key here, great point!

 

[x65943]

Obviously it's for money, they are a business, but it's still a nice gesture when before there was no solution

 

[Arras]

The price will tell if they are really worried about disabled people.

The xbox solution here where I'm at is always unavailable and costs half of a Series S. So that's how much they give a fuck.

(please note that in a huge number of countries those devices have expressive tax cuts)

It's a product by a company whose goal is to make money. Since it's a relatively niche product, the price needs to be fairly high to recoup costs, even if you consider that this may make people buy a ps5/games who would otherwise not. It will not be cheap.

 

[Ericzander]

So I'm not disabled, but I am incredibly lazy. I wonder how I could configure this so that I can put in the least amount of effort in the most efficient way.

 

[Dawn_Chaos]

So I'm not disabled, but I am incredibly lazy. I wonder how I could configure this so that I can put in the least amount of effort in the most efficient way.

As a manager of an accessibility auditing team, I can tell you that living with a disability of any sort does not ever result in less effort than doing the same tasks without the disability. The people who need this product are usually not using it to make things easier, but rather they're using it to be able to play these games at all. Using this device will be entirely different from using a normal controller, and will have its own seperate learning curve. Overall, not less effort.


Now, speaking with the stick pulled out of my ass, maaaaaaaaybe it could be a good fight stick for games like MK?

 

[CoolMe]

Great controller! for folks who have tentacles for hands..

 

[x65943]

As a manager of an accessibility auditing team, I can tell you that living with a disability of any sort does not ever result in less effort than doing the same tasks without the disability. The people who need this product are usually not using it to make things easier, but rather they're using it to be able to play these games at all. Using this device will be entirely different from using a normal controller, and will have its own seperate learning curve. Overall, not less effort.


Now, speaking with the stick pulled out of my ass, maaaaaaaaybe it could be a good fight stick for games like MK?

Yes but for us not disabled it will help us to be lazy

 

[gaga941021]

Yes but for us not disabled it will help us to be lazy

This is not something you should joke about.

 

[K3Nv2]

some peoples need those big button

Imagine a one armed person attempting to game on tiny buttons

 

[Noctosphere]

Imagine a one armed person attempting to game on tiny buttons

More like, imagine a person without hands attempting to game on tiny buttons, i remember the xbox controller was mostly meant for these people

 

[linuxares]

I know another reason for playing with this...

 

[Lazyt]

i wonder what happened to that nintendo accessibility controller

 

[kudofan]

This is not something you should joke about.

Yeah, being lazy is serious business.

 

[Lodad]

So I'm not disabled, but I am incredibly lazy. I wonder how I could configure this so that I can put in the least amount of effort in the most efficient way.

I think there is a bit of contention for competitive gaming because of this, making complex inputs more simple while being less accessible to everyone because of price and availability.

On a side note, what these really need are breakouts for custom inputs (I don't know if the M$ solution has this). There should be barebones kits where you can separately buy the breakout peripherals or design and connect your own to a simple ubiquitous plug to use as buttons. For example, pedals for MIDI keyboards - they're just a switch wired up to a 1/4" audio jack male plug that you press with your feet. You could change a button press to a lever, or rig up a capacitive membrane to require only a soft touch rather than a firm press - all for cheap, but I'm not confident that would ever happen.

Edit: it looks like the xbox adaptive does exactly what I described. Only $100 I might look into it to tool around with!

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Can you plug in external pedals or other inputs? That was the killer feature of the Xbox one.
The thing is, everybody with impaired mobility has different needs. Making a controller with modular buttons and sticks is great, but a single layout can't suit everyone.
This also looks like it will be hard to access every button even for a non-impaired person.
Having the ability to have important buttons more easily accessible through external inputs is important for usability.
They have given every button equal importance with this controller, making them all equally cumbersome to access, which is good for making the controller usable with every game, but means it won't work well with any game that uses more than a couple buttons regularly. And depending on the needs of the individual, this controller might not be suitable for them at all.
The way Microsoft did it with their controller is really the best way to do it, as it can work for anyone no matter their needs as long as they have the right peripherals that work for them.