Microsoft’s New Adaptive Controller Is for Gamers With Limited Mobility

It doesn’t look much like a controller. In fact, in the images Microsoft has made available, where it’s often shot against a pristine white background devoid of other objects, the new Adaptive Controller for Xbox looks like something you might use with your feet. 

It certainly doesn’t look like what you might imagine an Xbox controller for people with neurological or muscular issues might look like.

This has often been a major issue when it comes to gaming. While I no longer have the magazine issue, the game company Sierra On-Line used to publish its own magazine detailing upcoming products and titles.

 I remember reading about a father who had modified a joystick so that his quadriplegic son could play and beat King’s Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder.


The ability of technology to bring experiences to people who otherwise would not have been able to enjoy them is one of the most fundamentally positive uses of technology that exists.

But as Microsoft’s blog post notes, designing commercial solutions that can address the varying needs of a wide range of people at a scale and price point that make sense for commercial manufacture is often difficult.

Microsoft designed the controller in partnership with The AbleGamers Charity, The Cerebral Palsy Foundation, Craig Hospital, SpecialEffect, and Warfighter Engaged, and states its goal was to make the device as adaptable as possible, to work with common adaptive switches gamers with limited mobility may already own, and with two large, reprogrammable buttons.