Arcades and Accessible Controllers: An Exciting Week for Microsoft Gaming - The UpStream

Arcades and Accessible Controllers: An Exciting Week for Microsoft Gaming

posted Friday May 18, 2018 by Scott Ertz

Arcades and Accessible Controllers: An Exciting Week for Microsoft Gaming

It is no secret that Microsoft has been taking some wide swings lately with their product offerings. They've been looking to appeal to a wider range of customers, with products like Outlook for iPhone and Microsoft Pix, both of which are rated higher than Apple's included email client and camera app, respectively. They've even been enhancing their Cortana offerings, including the Harmon Kardon Invoke speaker, with an Alexa partnership.

This week, Microsoft showed off 2 new products in the gaming space, which are also swings hoping to strike gold again. First is a newly designed Xbox Adaptive Controller, designed specifically for accessible gaming. This large controller is similar in size to a fighting stick, but with a number of major differences. The most important is the removal of the traditional analog sticks, being replaced by large rocker plates. These plates are designed to be interacted with even if the player cannot open their hands, without sacrificing control capabilities. The directional pad and interface buttons are also greatly enlarged.

While all of that is fantastic, it doesn't yet touch on the adaptive aspect of the controller. That comes form the 19 1/8" jacks across the back of the controller. These jacks are not trying to make up for the lack of the headphone jack on the iPhone, but instead ports for the existing accessible gaming community. Many controller inputs, such as large joysticks/analog sticks, foot pedals and even air tubes, already exist to assist gamers with limited mobility. Microsoft wants to bring all of those accessories to the Xbox platform with the ease of an interface designed specifically for it.

Now, what if you're looking for a bigger, more public gaming experience? Microsoft's got you covered there, as well. The company has worked with their studio 343 Industries to produce Halo: Fireteam Raven, a new game in the Halo franchise designed specifically for the arcade. In fact, they have designed an incredible, specialized arcade cabinet for the game.

The cabinet features 4-player capability, and a 130-inch 4K screen. Unlike a traditional Halo title, there is no splitscreen capabilities, with the game playing equally across the single screen for all players. Following a more traditional Halo theme, players will play as the ODST and will fight alongside Master Chief to defend Halo. The game plays somewhere between a traditional Halo game and a traditional arcade shooter, so it should appeal to both the arcade fan and the Halo fan.

The arcade cabinet will release this summer in Dave and Busters across the US and Canada, with general availability coming at a later date.

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