TRANSCRIPT
The standard controllers for PlayStation, X-box or Nintendo video games can be difficult, or even impossible, to manoeuvre for people with limited mobility.
And it's not just frustration at not being able to take part in playing games - it can make social isolation worse in a community that already experiences isolation at a higher rate than the rest of the population.
But now Sony has developed a new controller, the Access Controller, specifically designed to overcome that problem.
One of the team who helped design the new controller is Cesar Flores, an accessibility consultant.
He has a disability himself, and says most accessible equipment feels 'medical'.
But this, he says, is different.
"It just allows me to do self-therapy. It's one of those things that gives me the ability to feel like, hey, I'm still me."
Alvin Daniel, a Senior Technical Program Manager at PlayStation, says the Access Controller, developed with input from consultants like Mr Flores, can be configured to work with a broad range of needs, rather than focusing on any particular disability.
"First of all, you don't have to hold the control to use it. It's designed to lie flat on a table, a wheelchair tray or on a lap board. It can be mounted with a lot of different mounting options: a tripod, for example. The second principle is it will make it much easier to press the buttons. It's a controller kit, so there's lots of different button caps in different sizes and shapes and textures that you can free from experiment and physically reconfigure the controller. All the buttons are organised in a single plane, like a keyboard, so there's nothing hidden on a different plane. And the third is the thumbsticks. So the thumbsticks, if you use two access controllers, for example, with the collaborative use feature, you can separate the thumbsticks as far apart, as close together, different levels, different heights, just way more re-positioning ability of the thumbsticks."
PlayStation is joining a growing list of brands working to expand their offerings for people with disability.
Apple has developed a feature that enables an iPhone to tell blind and low-vision users how close someone is to them.
Google's 'Live Transcribe' gives real-time speech-to-text transcriptions for people who are deaf or hearing-impaired.
Microsoft developed its own controller for the X-Box in 2018 which promotes accessibility.
Another of PlayStation's Accessibility Consultants, Paul Lane, says the new controller is - literally - a game-changer.
"To be able to have this come out of the box and work and it looks like a controller. You have a stick. You have the different buttons. The button sizes are really huge and I game with the side of my hands and my hands are pretty big. So me being able to space out the buttons, I'll be able to press the buttons in a way where I'm not hitting two buttons at a time."
He says this addresses a much wider issue than simply the ability to play video games.
"The more you take away from us, the more isolated we become. Having gaming and having an opportunity to game at a very high level, to be able to do it again, it feels like a reunion, that I had lost a close companion and am able to reunite with that person again."]]
Gamers with a disability like Mr Lane and Mr Flores have been working with Sony for five years on developing the Access Controller.
Mr Flores says it's the product of the input of many people with many different issues.
"It's probably the greatest gift that I've been given a long time. The reason being is my fingerprint, along with everyone else who's a part of this, our fingerprints are all over this."]]
The new controller goes on sale in Australia - and around the world - on December 6.
