Xbox Adaptive Joystick Available to buy now
Microsoft this week put its Xbox Adaptive Joystick on sale. A Microsoft Store exclusive, the $30 peripheral is positioned as a “companion for Xbox controllers” which Microsoft says can be plugged into an Xbox or PC, and is configurable with custom button remapping. The company has also posted a support document on the new device.
The Xbox Adaptive Joystick, a complementary product to Microsoft’s critically acclaimed Xbox Adaptive Controller, is designed for people with limited mobility—particularly in terms of fine-motor skills. On the product’s webpage, Microsoft says the Xbox Adaptive Joystick “helps make gaming more accessible for however you play.” Moreover, the company notes the accessory exists as a companion to the aforementioned Xbox Adaptive Controller and the bog standard Xbox controller.
Microsoft’s accessories for Xbox are analogous to that from Sony. I covered the Access Controller for PlayStation 5 extensively over the last couple years for my Forbes column; it’s good to see gaming heavyweights in Microsoft and Sony level up play in the accessibility arena. In an exclusive profile of disability-in-gaming nonprofit organization AbleGamers posted last May, then-chief operations officer and community outreach director Steve Spohn told me in part in an interview it’s a “strange time” seeing ostensible rivals in Microsoft and Sony banding together in an effort to “try to push the world forward on gaming accessibility.” Spohn, along with AbleGamers’ founder and executive director Mark Barlet, lauded the massive increases in inclusivity of the video game industry in the last several years. Nevertheless, Barlet said there remain “dark spots,” but overall the confluence of progressively-minded development studio and the prominence of social media has enabled people with disabilities to “advocate for themselves in a way we haven’t seen before,” adding technology’s ever-burgeoning capabilities have enabled game makers to “really lean into” creating more accessible and equitable user experiences for members of the disability community.
“We’re seeing new companies that haven’t even released their first game investing in making sure the experience is accessible,” Barlet said about the rise of accessibility in the video game industry. “Then on the flip side, we have studios that aren’t doing much at all. It’s getting better. It’s better than it’s ever been, for sure. But it’s not perfect.”
