Comic for Friday 1/6 (Early High Res)
I love that major console manufacturers are finally taking steps create accessible controller options and system-level support for button remapping and alternative control styles. More than once I've been talking to a friend of mine about new game coming out, and he casually reiterates that he has to wait and see what accessibility options the game even supports, so he knows if he can play it.
It's overdue, but I'm glad to see it happening. And also, I'm endlessly fascinated with the form factor these controllers take on. Controllers for abled gamers have followed such a standardized general structure for so long, that its incredible to see what controllers look like when the designers have to think outside the box. The sheer variety of ways in which controllers can be built to account for different inputs is always really cool to me from a mechanics standpoint.
Comments (5)
This reminds me of a story how pistol grips were invented in modern fencing. They were first created for veterans that had missing fingers and quickly all fencers realised that pistol grips were more ergonomical and better than the traditional. Though some fencers still prefer traditional grip because it allows you to move your grip to gain few more centimeters of reach while sacrificing some control and power.
Ergonomic research feels quite a bit like UX in many software applications, something that seems to be absolutely lowest priority and something that companies only start thinking way after the fact, if they make effort on it at all, it's completely bolt-on and retrofit. Which is rather odd, tbh, because the biomechanics underpinning ergonomics aren't exactly a huge mystery. Ya, we need some trial-and-error in there to find the best fit, but the general structural mechanics of the human body, and especially our hands, are pretty thoroughly understood.
I'm just trying to figure out how Leonardo is good for anyone. I get the Xbox one as it taps into an existing ecosystem of products.
And the Playstation doesn't have an existing ecosystem of products? There are no games that perhaps a disabled person couldn't play due to the default controller layout, that now they might be able to experience?
PC games are better about this, but even they often run into issues with hardcoded keys or inflexibility with keybinds. I swapped over to using ESDF instead of WASD years and years ago, mostly for ARPG and MMO purposes, and trying to use WASD anymore is extremely awkward and frustrating due to the entrenched muscle memory. *Most* games don't have a problem with it, but there are a remarkable number of games that have F hardcoded to something or other, and the devs never even considered that maybe some people use F for something other than "use" (I use A for that instead, since my pinky naturally rests on it). It's remarkably frustrating running into games that I basically just can't play due to an inability to rebind a particularly important key. And I'm not even doing it for accessibility purposes. I used to play FFXIV with a guy that had lost his right arm, so he had to do everything via his left arm, plus some quite clever foot pedal/button usage (he had one of those square keypads that a lot of streamers use for stuff down on the floor, and poked it with his toes). Fortunately, FFXIV has quite robust rebind options, but I can't imagine trying to play some of the other games out there like that. And console games have historically either just had a single control setup, or maybe a handful of relatively standardized options. If that doesn't work for you, the historical answer has been "um, sorry, maybe try PC gaming". I too am glad to see consoles finally wake up to accessibility options and control customization being a thing that really needs to exist.