"I wouldn't be surprised to see able-bodied people using it." Jérémy Lecerf, alias Gyzmo, was won over. Sitting in a wheelchair, this French video game and disability specialist was invited by Sony to London to test a particular game controller. Large buttons arranged in a circle and a joystick on one side: the Japanese company is launching a new PlayStation controller designed to make it easier for people with disabilities to play games, an issue that has long been neglected by the industry.
Suffering from muscular dystrophy, Gyzmo is present as an ambassador for the French association HandiGamer, which represents players with disabilities. According to him, the new controller "is extremely well thought out" because Sony has sought to make it accessible to people with very different disabilities.
The Access Controller for PS5 is designed to be accessible right out of the box.
Check out the inside of the box: https://t.co/Le9aOWu9lG pic.twitter.com/BtFLXMyg66
— PlayStation France (@PlayStationFR) October 12, 2023
"It's nice to see that the industry is really getting started" on the issue of accessibility, said Lecerf, 39, as he tested the "access" controller on Stray, an adventure video game in which the player plays as a cat. "More and more publishers are playing the game."
Tailoring the controller to gamers
Two-thirds of gamers with disabilities face barriers or problems in playing, and 40% have purchased video games that they were unable to use due to poor accessibility, according to a 2021 report by Scope, the UK's disability equality charity.
But the issue of accessibility is now being put forward by major studios, publishers and manufacturers. This is an essential effort, according to Jeremy Lecerf. "Video games allowed me to have a life that was close to normal, to have a social life," he says. It is a tool for "opening up to the world".
Addressing accessibility issues "is a trend that we're seeing across the industry, it's not limited to PlayStation," said Alvin Daniel, project manager at Sony. "We didn't want it to be up to the player to adapt to the controller, but for the controller to adapt to the player," he says. This is no easy feat: "no two people experience a disability in exactly the same way."
The new device can be placed on a table or attached to a stand and oriented in all directions. Each button can change shape thanks to magnetic caps, to make them easier to press, or grab, and the user can assign them any function. It is possible to combine several controllers, "access" or classic.
RRP: €89.99
The controller is "a bit big and the buttons are hard to press," but "you can attach external buttons to it, which is a good thing for me," said Melanie Eilert, a German gamer who is also an accessibility consultant and suffers from spinal muscular atrophy.
While she can only play with her right hand, she came with her own colorful buttons - there are many peripherals on the market developed by third-party manufacturers, adapted to the players' disabilities, sometimes operated by a movement of the mouth or by the breath for example. There's not enough hindsight, she says, to compare PlayStation's new controller with its competitor, launched five years ago by Microsoft on Xbox - which also allows you to connect external devices.
But the development of these kinds of devices is crucial, she said. "I used to play when I was a kid. Then (due to the progression of the disease) I couldn't do it for 15 years. I had to wait a very long time to be able to start again, thanks to the emergence of suitable solutions.
At Sony, the project started in 2018 and development took time "because we were given a blank sheet of paper," says Alvin Daniel. Several different designs were tested on three continents, with the help of associations and experts, before arriving at the finished product. The controller will be available on December 6 at a suggested retail price of €89.99 in Europe.