Microsoft Patents An Xbox Controller With Braille Readout

We know that as far as making its consoles more accessible to gamers with disabilities, Microsoft has been making some pretty decent progress on that front. Just last year the company unveiled a new controller for the Xbox One that can be customized to make it more accessible for certain gamers.

Now it seems that Microsoft is exploring the idea of making its games more playable for those who might be visually impaired. This is according to a recently-discovered patent by LetsGoDigital in which Microsoft has filed for a patent for an idea of what seems to be a controller that features a Braille readout.

According to the patent’s description, “A number of paddles may be arranged on a game controller housing so that a player may engage selected ones of the paddles to enable encoding braille characters using the paddles. This input may be used to control a game, enter text into a chat session or take any other action desired. The converse may also occur, where a combination of the paddles may provide haptic feedback detectable by a user holding a game controller so that the paddles encode braille output (or other data), allowing a user to receive output simply by contact with the paddles .”

That being said, this is only a patent at this point in time which means that there’s no telling if Microsoft plans on making it a reality. However, if and when they do, this will no doubt come in handy for gamers who are visually impaired.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gadgets, Gaming
Tags: Microsoft, Patent, Xbox