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Leveling the Playing Field: Who Leads in Game Accessibility

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A simple question sparked a big dive: which gaming company actually delivers the most accessible experience? We unpack the answer by looking at the places that matter most—how you hold a controller, how you shop, and how a game supports you second by second once you press start.

We start with Nintendo’s split personality: a Switch OS that includes screen reader, zoom, and bold text, and first‑party games that still lack robust in‑game settings. From there, we zero in on the real comparison—Xbox and PlayStation. On the hardware side, Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller stands tall with a modular, plug‑and‑play ecosystem that lets players build their own input rigs using big buttons, joysticks, and switches. Add Logitech’s Adaptive Gaming Kit and you can mount inputs where your body needs them. Microsoft’s store also puts accessibility tags front and center, so you know what you’re buying before you commit.

Sony takes a different hardware path with the PlayStation Access controller, a circular layout designed for flexible grip and positioning. The bigger story, though, is software. PlayStation first‑party titles consistently ship with deep, thoughtful options: high‑contrast modes, audio and haptic cues, QTE simplification, snap‑to aim, puzzle assistance and skips, subtitle controls, and traversal aids. We highlight real wins across both ecosystems—Forza’s time‑slow assists, Minecraft’s visual support, Psychonauts 2’s balanced options, plus God of War Ragnarök, Spider‑Man, and Ghost of Tsushima, which show how accessibility can remove barriers without removing joy.

Our verdict is honest and practical. Xbox earns the hardware point and storefront transparency; PlayStation takes the software point with best‑in‑class first‑party accessibility. Nintendo is improving at the system level but needs to bring those gains into its games. Your best choice depends on your needs, not brand loyalty—and that’s the most empowering takeaway.

Enjoyed this breakdown or have your own setup tips? Follow Tech N' Tactile, share this episode with a friend, and tell us the one feature that makes or breaks a game for you. Subscribe and leave a review to help more players find accessible ways to play.

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Cody:

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Tech N' Tactile Podcast. Holy crap, it has been a minute, but we're back. As always, my name's Cody, and I'm joined by my little brother Michael.

Michael:

Hello, hello, and today we have a very special little episode for you. We were reached out to by one of our wonderful followers with a very specific question that we thought deserved its own little spotlight of an episode because it's quite the question to unpack. And that question being, what video game company has the most accessibility?

Cody:

Uh I can go ahead and say uh it's definitely not Nintendo. Yeah, no. However, I'm gonna put some caveats there. I mean, Nintendo kind of has it's interesting. Their games don't have accessibility options per se, but a lot of their games are made to kinda to where, like, you know, all walks of life can play their their games. Um however, it's very interesting. Uh, because like so I'm playing through Breath of the Wild with somebody who has never really touched a video game before. They're it's their first time really gaming and playing Zelda and everything. And to them, like, you know, there there's like you know, options out there that can help newcomers and stuff, but uh not really in that game. It's kind of a sink or swim kind of game, kind of throwing you out to the wolves. Um it's actually kind of a harder game whenever you first start out. But other than that, like you know, you got like your Marios and stuff that's got the assist mode for people who may have trouble playing stuff, but nothing in terms of real raw accessibility content. So yeah, I gotta say Nintendo might be kind of the weakest link in this regard. The real questions, I guess it boils down to is Microsoft or Sony, yeah, uh, more than Nintendo. Not that Nintendo, yeah, because like Nintendo does have accessibility in their system. They got their own screen reader. Like, you know, I think we've covered it before, whenever we talked about the Switch. It's got a zoom feature for magnification, it has a bold text and everything, so it does have some accessibility options on the OS level.

Michael:

But when we first saw that accessibility menu in itself, we were very surprised because when we actually went into the system settings looking for accessibility and didn't find it, we were very surprised to see that they had separated that out, and not to mention like when we saw that screen reader on the switch too for the first time, that floored us.

Cody:

Um, and you know, as I said before, uh in one of the previous episodes, it works on the OS, but it doesn't work for the eShop. Yeah, no, no doubt. That that that baffles the hell out of me. I don't understand how how that how that's a thing, but anyway, it's an OS level thing, but it's not on I've never seen a Nintendo game that specifically has accessibility options. Right.

Michael:

I don't think I've ever seen that, period. Right. The the closest thing that Nintendo has gotten to an accessibility feature, especially with a lot of its new hardware changes when it comes to um either games or the um the Nintendo Switch Online service itself with the NSO games would just be the ability to be able to remap controls to the new hardware for like a bunch of different games or older games on the service itself. But outside of that, uh other than like you know, some tiny little tweaking and remapping for controls, there's really nothing to speak of.

Cody:

Yeah, so uh for uh so Nintendo is kind of the weakest link here. Um it like I've said, like I like I said earlier, it really boils down to Xbox and PlayStation. Uh I can't really put Valve or anything in there. Uh like I hear that they've put a screen reader into uh SteamOS's big picture mode, but I have not tested it. Uh and Valve doesn't really make lots of video games compared to Xbox or PlayStation. I think they used to. Where's Half-Life 3? Portal 3. What are those games? Anyway, that's a that's a tangent for another day. But I mean yeah, so I I guess it boils down to yeah, those two. Uh so I'll cover I'll cover what we can maybe think about whenever it comes to them because it's it's an honestly really good question.

Michael:

Like a lot to unpack. So first off, like, you know, big boy in the room, you got you know, Mr. Microsoft with uh Xbox and its proprietary. They have done something kind of that was the first big step, if you will, in this kind of realm, especially within this community and this question, with the XAC as its tagline for its code name, or the Xbox adaptive controller. This thing was very revolutionary for when it released back in 2018, I believe.

Cody:

Yeah, it's it's been a minute, it's been a hot minute. Um, I wonder if they've ever adapted it for if they made like a series variant of it or anything. I don't know, I don't really know. I don't know too much about the adaptive controller. It's something I've always wanted to play with, but it can get kind of costly. Unfortunately, you know, video gaming, whether you're uh disabled or not, is kind of uh getting it's getting a little too expensive. It's an it's more than just an enthusiast hobby at this point. It's becoming like a full-time commitment if you want to play stuff. And that accessibility controller, it's not really cheap. I'll say that.

Michael:

So I do know that the main the main like component of the controller itself that everything connects to, that baby alone is $99. Straight out the box. You don't get anything with it, you just get the base that everything connects to. And then you have all of the individual controller pieces that come in their own little bundles from each respective company that has them bundled for whatever they may be tailored for, that have their own price tag. Some of them are 60, some of them are 80, some of them are 100, just depending on what bundle of accessories that you're wanting to buy for the controller itself that is compatible with um kind of like the dock itself, if you will. Um, because I do know that the XAC itself, if you if you kind of imagine it, it's like a if you took like a a Series S but made it really thin and you put like I believe it's 19 uh three and a half millimeter audio jacks along with two USB ports that you can connect everything to because you can like you can have like a whole um kind of like a sim setup if you've ever seen like a big giant like sim racing setup. Imagine that, but being able to do that with this accessibility controller with all its all of its attachable gadgets and gizmos and things like that.

Cody:

Yeah, it's I mean I honestly uh maybe I'll throw down the dough one like you know and pick up some components and try things out. Um but honestly that would probably be more in the realm of your uh uh realm to tr to try because for me that the controller I don't have problems uh I don't have as much I don't really have mobile mobility issues to deal with. It's more on your realm. So that might be something for you to try out more than me. But I mean, you know, either way, I would still like to see it. I still want to see this controller in terms of accessibility and what it could do and how much better you could play games because like uh there's a game that I really would like you to play. Uh and uh I know some of those controls might be a little harder for you to deal with, like a lot of Rockstar games in particular, right? Yeah uh and uh you know they're getting better as they release newer and newer games, but you know, the older ones kind of have a you know the control scheme is a little too much for you to do. Right. So I'm wondering, can that accessibility controller alleviate some of those uh problems? And I'm wondering in what ways can it do that?

Michael:

So So I do know with specifically the controller itself, there's a whole bunch of different like things that you can see that you can like it's all plug and play. The whole theme of the thing is just being massively plug and play. So I know that you have the adaptive joystick that's basically a really configurable wire joystick with like different shifting fun um functions and different like inputs that you can expand to be like you know, hotkeys, stuff like that. Then you have kind of where Logitech comes in with Microsoft's um partnership with their, I believe it's they call it the the adaptive gaming kit, I believe, if my memory serves, which is like it's a bundle of like 12 different little buttons and triggers and velcro pads with different labels and like um almost I I believe it might come with like some um little labels that you can feel as well for like easy customization for layouts and stuff. Like it it gives you like giant controller buttons that you can mount anywhere in any orientation with its rack that you can kind of have and fit and position wherever and however that's most comfortable for its user with. Like basically, if you took the controller and enlarged it by like you know five, ten times and have like the giant little buttons in the stick, you can do it that way as well. If if if someone has limited motor function to where they they don't have like the really specific digit movement, but they have like the whole limb movement, it's really good for that.

Cody:

I would love to see some of these. We have definitely gotta pick one of those up. But um, yeah. So what else? Like, well, off the top of my head, Microsoft also on their store front ha whenever you go to a specific game uh on their game page, they specifically have a an accessibility tab, right? And it will tell you how many accessibility options they have, and then I believe you're able to click on them. Sometimes they're not labeled properly in the store, I've noticed, although they it's very rare, but usually they tell you what kind of accessibility options are in the game, because that was always my biggest issue. If I'm gonna buy a game and I don't know if I could play it or not, like I need to know is there any accessibility options and what can they do for me?

Michael:

So I do know that the the Microsoft store itself does that's another thing, kind of comparable um when it comes to the fight with Sony in this regard with the both of their store pages. I will give the point here to Xbox and Microsoft because when it comes to their actual like little labels and their little um tags that they have, you can see them and access them a lot more approachably than you can with Sony's because Sony's are still there, but they don't they're not like you know front and center like Microsoft's is when it comes to its actual pages, because you still have to scroll down a little bit and you have to click into the menu that shows you like the kind of like the legal jargon fine text of a document to see the accessibility lists, but with Microsoft Store page you can kind of see all the tags kind of highlighted to begin with, which I like.

Cody:

It's literally like right above the price of the game.

Michael:

Yes, like it's literally there, like it's like all the tags are there. So I'll I'll give the point to Xbox on that one for sure.

Cody:

Right. And so yeah, whenever it comes to hardware and software, I think Xbox definitely has the lead on Sony whenever it comes to accessibility. However, um I don't know, I think that PlayStation has some type of accessibility controller. I could have sworn they had something, didn't they?

Michael:

Or is it is it theirs is uh they they do, so theirs is a lot different than Microsoft's approach. While it's the same kind of core functionality concept, its design is completely other side of the woods. So with how Xbox's controller is, you have the main kind of dock system that's like a little rectangle, and then you have all of the the millions of ports that you can can connect everything to and run and mount it to its um hardware however you wish, if you have like you know, like a rig set up like I was mentioning. But with um PlayStations, I know while you can connect things to it and you can kind of modify it, it's a little bit different because how um Xbox has theirs in kind of like a Planck dock style. Theirs is a lot more um round, like I know that their main base is very rounded, kind of like if you imagine like a arcade ball top being separated, it's like that, and then the the dock itself that has the buttons on it is on the outside of this giant circle with the um controller nub on it, and the buttons themselves are like little gas pedal flippers that you can kind of control on the edge of this circle type stuff, and you can still connect stuff to it and you can still kind of configure it. But I do know that at least with PlayStations, it's um kind of gas pedal y with circles with the way that you have it initially laid out, versus how Microsoft's is kind of the same components, just all externally wired and connected with the wires to the docking station, how you can lay out and mount however you want to begin with.

Cody:

So they both have accessibility controllers. We have not used either one of them. We don't really have too much of an opinion on them, however, you know, you know, get the financial situation under control and what we're doing.

Michael:

We're definitely open to testing them out at some point for sure. We we just haven't had the means to quite yet.

Cody:

I honestly, yeah, it would be a fantastic video to put out there, and we would love to do so. But in terms of the accessibility uh question, both have their controllers. They both probably have their ups and downs. We don't know about them. Storefronts have accessibility things that you can find for games. However, Xbox is out there more than PlayStation is, they really highlight it more. Right.

Michael:

However, I I definitely I I definitely can say with accessories like you know the the Logitech adaptive kit and you know Microsoft their modular button setups, players definitely can, I feel like, build setups a lot more unique as to their needs from like you know the different extensions or like the button hubs or you know, however they really want to lay it out. But like I feel like this initial like style of ecosystem, if you will, can provide a lot more about um giving them the freedom of choice and not having to worry about you know some sort of compromise out of the box, if that makes sense.

Cody:

Well, I can just I mean uh like I was going to say, we got the storefronts and the controllers out of the way, but uh that's not where the real meat is. The meat is the games. And in this regard, they're both honestly pretty good. Uh I mean, depending on where you go. Xbox and PlayStation have been on the ball whenever it comes to accessibility in their games. Some better than others. Like, I haven't played the new Gears of War uh remake and I really like Gears of War, but I have trouble tracking enemies with shooting games. Uh, so I'm wondering if they have a snap to assist aiming. They I don't know if they do or don't. I have I would love to get that. But I can say for a lot of Xbox games, you know, I played Minecraft uh the the spin-off games are Dungeons and then Legends. Those games have pretty good accessibility options for colorblind, aim assisting, and whatnot, and have you.

Michael:

Really good for visual aid, I will say.

Cody:

Yeah, absolutely. I've played Forza Horizon, uh, you know, and I can't see any, like you know, I I could never drive a car, but they have this option where you can slow down time and stuff for people who can't see that well. Kind of bullet time style. Yeah, they uh I remember that kind of thing. Like that that game had a lot of accessibility options for somebody who couldn't really drive a car, and I was able to actually, you know, play the game comfortably well. Um Psychonauts 2 comes to mind as having some good accessibility. Uh, it has a few no-nos that I'm not really a fan of, like just straight up turning on God mode. Right. Like that kind of thing.

Michael:

Because like what like we always say, we want it accessibility in the in terms of like the video game world is best when it only takes what you have and enhances it further so that you open your doors to so many more people instead of taking away from the experience to meet an end goal, because that's not the point of accessibility. You don't want to, you know, you don't want to ruin what you've made, you want to only enhance it further to make your market grow.

Cody:

Right. But still, there's still options there. There was, you know, colorblind, there's aim assist and everything like that, and it still works and it does uh just fine. Um yeah, so there's a but then there's a few stinkers that I really wasn't a fan of for me for being visually impaired. Starfield comes to mind. I mean, I know uh you know, or not really uh it wasn't my kind of game anyway, but I tried to get into it, but really it didn't strict strike really well with me because couldn't really do a lot of good aim assist thing for me. Like I said, I can't track when it comes to shooting, shooting things uh keeping up with things is kind of hard for me to do. So sometimes I need the game to kind of do that good aim assist and give it away.

Michael:

I do remember Starfield launch being a little bit clunky to memory as well.

Cody:

It's always been clunky. It's a Bethesda game. Where is I know you don't play a whole lot of Bethesda games, but I can tell you from you know Fallout 3 to now, there is no such thing as a stable playing Bethesda game. Anyone here would probably know that who's pop who's familiar. But that was a stinker, that was a stinker for me. Um but then you've got the PlayStation side. And for me personally, I mean, you know, I have the Xbox and the PlayStation. Uh, I've just kind of resonated more with PlayStation's games more than I have Xbox.

Michael:

Um one thing I will say about um like you know, PlayStation Studios and like you know, a lot of Sony first party titles is surprisingly enough, with when you when you kind of see all these big, like, you know, grandiose some AAA titles very much out the gate, you you almost like when you think about it, you almost get the kind of PC level of optimization, how like you know, PC players will tweak the graphics cards with all the like the sliders and the menus. It's it's really like you get that with a lot of um PlayStation Studio stuff, because I know you know games like you know God of War Ragnarok, both one and two plus Last of Us Two have a slew of different options that you can kind of tweak and go through and twinker to your liking depending on what your specific case may be.

Cody:

Uh yeah, I've not played The Last of Us Part 2, but I have played the so it's funny. The when it comes to the original game of the the first Last of Us, uh there really wasn't a lot of accessibility options that I could really speak to you about. Like that it had an aim assist and whatnot, but it was really not the greatest. But then when they remade it for the PlayStation 5, I know remakes boo. But it had a uh camera assist, it had an aim assist, it had plenty of mobility issues for motor control people, like simplifying quick time events. Um, I mean, for you specifically, I know like anything that would help you alleviate using your right hand, which is like the aim assist, the heavy snap aiming, oh yeah, uh would also be really helpful. Um it had auditory cues for like you know, deaf uh people who are hard of hearing. Uh like it had like visual cues for audio cues, that's what I meant to say. Um there was a lot here. There was a lot of just so many accessibility options in that game specifically that no one would really even think to have, but uh I won't lie, it it made the experience amazing for me to play.

Michael:

Yeah, it's it's really cool to see how taking these things, like you know, that some people might call like a modular menu and like you know, developing it with these developers that are like keeping, you know, again, sadly, because not every video game company these days are making accessibility the first note before designing something. It's it's it's good to see that over the the course of time as we're going through um the recent years that a lot of people are starting to keep disabled players in mind and actually having you know teams with like QA reports that they kind of go and they kind of like collaborate with for like different charities um that you know that you see around like the big SoCal areas for the West Coast and all those, like you know, where the headquarters are. Because I know like just being able to see how these companies are trying to collaborate just the slightest bit more with these kind of operations to actually kind of get an understanding to better like you know update what they're trying to make is really nice to see.

Cody:

So, yeah, uh next game I played for PlayStation that had good ones, and that would be Spider-Man. Uh specifically for sure Spider-Man the remastered for uh PlayStation 5. I've not played the second one yet, but I had played Spider-Man and Miles Morales, and it has like any if you were a QTE person to where they're kind of hard for you to do, you know, if you're mo if you have a little bit of motor issues or anything like that, uh you can simplify or straight up turn off Q quick time events. Um they have uh puzzle assists to where if you don't know what you're doing, like maybe you're like me where you have like lower vision and you can't tell what you're doing, uh they can they have little things where you can the camera will swing to give you an idea of like it'll point the camera to where you need to go to explain how to do something without outright telling you, um, unless you're God of War Ragnarok, which I'll get into later. But um yeah, there's puzzle assist, and then there's a straight up option to skip puzzles if you so incline. I don't agree with that one because it just you know, but if you get it. Yeah, I mean, but to each their own, if you don't walk if you don't care for it or whatnot, and it's too much for you to handle, uh, whether whatever kind of disability you have, or you know, hell, if you're not even disabled and you're just saying, I don't give a shit about puzzles, I don't want to do fucking puzzles, I want to be Spider-Man, who cares? Yeah, then you can turn them off and just you know have the experience that you want. And you know, that's that's cool. Um Spider-Man's good. One little but I'll yeah.

Michael:

Go ahead. One little note I did want to make about just like a little tiny spotlight that I wanted to do for um a lot of what you were saying with QTEs and how a lot of developers are are keeping a lot of like you know um physical impairments in mind with that, with like, you know, having the option to have them either be turned off or on an auto setting. One game that I that I've seen probably do that the best in recent years is mine and Cody's personal game of the year, which would be Claire Obscura Expedition 33.

Cody:

That is true. And that game, and that's that's not exclusive to consoles, that's on everything except Nintendo. Yep. But um yeah, that game relies on QTEs to pull off your uh special abilities, and if you can't do them, which if you you know the QTEs are there to make your attacks do more damage, but if you just if you're like me and you can't do them because you can't see them pop up properly, you can turn on auto QTE. You won't get the benefit of getting the QTE perfect, but you'll still get the benefit of not missing the QTE and doing like the least amount of damage. Right. So you're still at a bit of a penalty. I have to knock some points away from that game just for that. However, it's not game-breaking. You can still win, and I have. I beat the game and I had no problem with the QTEs turned off.

Michael:

Yeah, I will say it it doesn't affect the flow of gameplay at all. It's all natural. Nothing is you it doesn't feel interrupted in the slightest.

Cody:

No, I will say for visual cues, maybe they could do a little better for someone like me, but uh I mean that's just a skill issue, and my I can I can fully admit to just sucking ass at some of the fucking boss fights in that game, which is fine. I can take that L, especially with Simon. If you know, you know.

Michael:

Yep, if you know, you know.

Cody:

Anyway, my next game that I wanted to talk about with PlayStation was the God of War series, the specifically the reboots. The original games didn't have accessibility options, they were back in it. It was a different it was a different time. But uh God of War 2018 had a little bit of accessibility options, but it mainly boiled as far as I know as to the colorblind correctiveness, so you could turn off camera shaking if you're motion sick. Um, you know. Uh, but like it was very basic stuff. Ragnarok is where the meat and potatoes come in because Ragnarok, um, you know, you have the QTE assists, you have the colorblind corrections, you have the uh aim assist with snap aiming, and you also have puzzle assist. However, the puzzle assist kind of gets me. Like, you know, um even whenever you don't have puzzle assist turned on or whatever in the accessibility, or I I think it's puzzle, uh whatever it is. If you get to a puzzle, it only takes them like 30 seconds, and then whoever the hell's following you will be like, Did you see that wheel? What if you threw your axe at it? And I'm like, bitch, let me figure it out. Like, that's a problem that everyone had with Ragnarok.

Michael:

Almost like that classic, um, kind of like the classic like PlayStation hint system, kind of back in the uh kind of Sly Cooper days, how the game would yell at you if you, you know, either took too long or like we're we're missing something to progress.

Cody:

I don't remember uh too much about it, but I mean, you know, it it was definitely a problem that people had. But still, if you don't care about that kind of thing, then it's still like you know, really good, uh, especially for somebody who doesn't know, like who can't see the get the better details uh for me personally. Yeah, God of War Ragnarok, amazing accessibility options on it that got me through the game, no problem. I've heard very good things about The Last of Us Part 2, however, like I said, haven't played it. Um have not gone through it personally. Uh here it's on the PlayStation Plus catalog for the remasters, so you know, you know, maybe I'll go through that. Um I've heard yeah, really good things about that. But that's really uh almost all the games. I only have one more, and that's Ghost of Tsushima. Oh, not played Yote, but uh I can say in terms of Tsushima's uh thing, you know, I played it on the PS4 at launch and then I played it on PS5. Uh it has that amazing snap aiming. Oh, yeah. I love that.

Michael:

For sure.

Cody:

Uh it's got you have the ability to turn down the ability of uh guards, uh how fast they see you uh if you can't tell what you're doing. Not really my cup of tea, but uh, you know, maybe someone else who might have a little bit of trouble playing games who is a little more impaired than either one of us. You know, there are options out there that will literally uh you can dumb down the AI so that way you don't get your ass handed to you, and you can uh also increase the wind trail effects whenever you use the wind. Yeah. Uh I had to turn that up because I couldn't tell where I was going. I'll fully admit that.

Michael:

You you remember when I was first um completing that that I had to turn that on because I couldn't see it normally. I I just there's no way.

Cody:

But they they had a cool concept. It was like the wind will blow and then you watch the direction of the wind blowing, like the grass. You would watch where the glorious grass is blowing or the tree limbs blow, and it tells you where you need to go organically. Well, for my uh blind ass, I can't fucking see that. So I had to turn on the wind effects to where the wind looks like it's fucking snowing. Like that's just the big white gust of wind that tells you, hey, go that way, dumbass.

Michael:

Like I will definitely say with the way Tsushima is set up, it's it's very open by design and the way it's approached is is done really well. I will say, probably in terms of like, you know, me specifically physically and like from an accessibility standpoint, I enjoyed every single second of Ghost. The only thing that kind of was a slight wall for me to kind of like, you know, do in terms of like, you know, game progression, story progression, or like, you know, content progression as a whole would just be the bamboo segments with um I was literally about.

Cody:

I was about to say that.

Michael:

That would be my only tick for Ghost of Tsushima in terms of me and accessibility and like how they could have handled that possibly a little bit better for people. That would be my only takeaway.

Cody:

Well, guess what? There is an accessibility option in there as far as I remember that literally lets you turn off or do simplified uh bamboo cuts. I don't think you use I think I remember telling you about them and you were too stubborn to turn them on because you were like, fuck that.

Michael:

I wanted the authentic experience.

Cody:

Uh it's all about accessibility, my dude. But uh yeah, as far as I know, uh you can you can turn off the QTEs or no, you can make it to where you have longer time to do them, or like I know that there is a bamboo assist that you can turn on in Tsushima. Um and it is also present in Yote, as far as I should know.

Michael:

We'll see how that goes because from what I've heard, they've kind of upped the ante on those.

Cody:

Yeah, uh, we'll see. Don't know how that goes, but definitely uh looking forward to that at some point. But money. But uh yeah, yeah, money indeed. But yeah, that's all the first party uh games that I can think of. I mean, the Demon Souls remake comes to mind, but there's no real accessibility options that uh it's a pretty accessible game because you don't have to worry about aiming or anything in that game. I mean, you can, but you're not really gonna if you're aiming, you're gonna be standing still. And yeah, um for the most part, it's about locking on and everything. And like I said, uh accessibility uh for me personally isn't dumbing down your game, it's about making it accessible to everyone. If you want a hard game, then make that hard game, but make it hard to wear. Anyone can enjoy it on uh you know it with different types of uh impairments. I I will say as far as not everyone is uh before you go on, I'll say not everyone is like me. I'm not here if you like to play your games as breezy and easy as humanly possible, there is no shame in that. Accessibility is different for everybody. I can absolutely say that's just for me personally. I think uh for me personally, I want the game to be as authentic as I possibly can with the little bit of things that just help me play the game a little better. But some people don't want to climb a mountain. Right to put it in foreign terms of the Resident Evil remake, one of my favorite games, the difficulty in that game is uh uh attuned to walking. Some people just want to go on a brisk walk, some people might want to go hiking uh on a little rougher terrain, and some people like to climb fucking mountains. I am one of those people that likes to climb mountains. That doesn't mean everyone is like that. Right, so yeah. That little tangent aside, accessibility options are you know, whatever you make of them, like what helps you the most. Exactly. Yeah. In terms of what I have had better luck with, it has been on the PlayStation side, but that's also because I think PlayStation just has the more interesting games than Xbox. Xbox has some good games, but they have been kind of fumbling the ball in terms of my interest lately. I think the biggest thing that I loved that came out of Microsoft was Psychonauts 2. And that's because I can't believe that game got a sequel. I love that game so much. Oh, I love that game. But yeah, I'm gonna have to give the point in terms of the most interesting games with the most uh, you know, if you're going by, you know, aesthetic-wise, I'm gonna have to go with PlayStation. However, if you are on Xbox, you still get really good accessibility. Yeah. Maybe not in all of their games, specifically in maybe Bethesda games, they might be the outlier. Uh, but uh they still have something in there, just not not specifically for me. So they wouldn't be counted as the most accessible.

Michael:

Yeah, if if I had to kind of give my kind of simple breakdown on kind of the the trifecta of the big three, if you will, when it comes to Xbox, they definitely in my book don't get the software and game point. Their point in this game to me for Xbox goes to their um hardware initiatives when it comes to the what they're making for accessibility. Now, if I had to give a point specifically on the game side and software side, it would definitely get a PlayStation. Nintendo is uh in an off on its own little ship out in the middle of nowhere that has no idea what it wants to do, so I'm not even gonna give them anything um kind of for what they're wanting to do, but they're definitely steering back to the mainland and actually getting a good foot on the ground with at least on the system level, but outside of that they haven't really done much. But again, just to recap my personal thoughts, Xbox gets the hardware point, Sony gets the software point, and Nintendo is getting there.

Cody:

Exactly. I gotta say, so to recap, ex yeah, like you said, Xbox, good controller, good store for uh letting you know, and you know, it kind of lackluster software, but when they do put out their software, it does have a good bit of stuff in there. Uh PlayStation. You don't get to see their accessibility features outright on the store. But their games, definitely, their first party games are never really lacking. I've yet to play a first-party PlayStation game. I've not played Helldivers, but I had to guess. Because that's because that's more competitive, I would I would think that that probably would not have any, but I might be surprised. I don't know. But uh from the fur of for most of the first party software that I played from PlayStation Studios, their accessibility has been very much on point, and it has covered a wide array wider array of disabilities. Yes, and it's only getting better. So, sir, to summarize, I guess even further, uh Xbox good, PlayStation more interesting. So go PlayStation if you want that kind of experience more experiences. Yep. But if you got an Xbox, you're not up shit creek, you're really good. Actually you know what? It's I can't even say PlayStation. They're both genuinely good. Except Nintendo.

Michael:

Yep. Nintendo's just kind of figuring it out its life right now.

Cody:

So, yeah, I know, like now that I'm actually talking about it and everything and I'm thinking about it, uh the final answer to what company is the most accessible and the answer is both. Yeah. Honestly, both handle their accessibility in different ways. And it's honestly down to personal preference. Yep.

Michael:

Kind of like again, because you can mold your experience to how you would like to play it.

Cody:

Right. God, I f like you know, I'm thinking to myself and I'm talking about this, and I'm like, I sound like, no, no, no, I'm contradicting myself. No, no, no. Uh you know what? It's it's literally it's just both. Except Nintendo.

Michael:

Yep.

Cody:

They gotta do better. They they really gotta do better.

Michael:

Yeah, they Nintendo was they're they're they're taking a tiny step for you know their system. So they're they're getting there slowly but surely, you know, baby steps, it'll take time. But like, you know, again, just to recap, um, to the person that asked us this wonderful, wonderful question. Thank you. We hope that we were able to kind of unpack this question in the best way possible. And I would say that we we did a pretty darn good job at it. So again, thank you for the question. And as always, um, everyone, don't forget before you go into that, yeah.

Cody:

Uh I'll I'll put my piece in there. But uh yeah, to summarize both.

Michael:

For sure, yeah. And as always, um, y'all know where to find us, please. Um, if y'all ever have any more questions or if you would like to be um just any general questions that we could answer for whatever you're going through. If you'd like to share your story, you can always find us at techntactile.com, as well as you can follow us on our various social media platforms, of which we now have a TikTok as well, which is brand new. So, again, we hope you have enjoyed this. We hope that we were able to answer your question as most efficiently as possible. And as always, people, stay accessible.

Cody:

Stay accessible. Thanks for listening to our Gorilla Style Podcast.