Sony is continuing to expand the settings for accessibility on the PS5. In a new blog entry, the company lists all the features that should make it easier for players with handicaps to use the console.
Video games can be a tremendous challenge even for non-handicapped gamers. But there are also gamers who have to live with some form of disability. According to Sony, 15% of the world’s population can be classified in this group.
The aim of the company was therefore to make gaming easier for people with the help of a barrier-free system. The available and upcoming measures are explained in more detail in a new blog entry.
The PS4 already has settings that can create accessibility, including functions such as text-to-speech, color inversion and activation of user-defined key assignments. According to Sony, this hardware functionality forms the basis for an improved gaming experience for all individual abilities.
The PS5 will also offer a voice dictation function for entering texts quickly without the need to use a virtual keyboard. The spoken words are displayed immediately on the screen. In turn, the predictive text allows blind and visually impaired users to hear the text on the screen, while deaf and hard of hearing users can enter text messages that are read to other party members.
“These features will now support multiple languages(*) on PS5 globally,” said Sony on the official website. These include: English (US), English (UK), Japanese, German, Italian, France, French, Canadian French, Spanish, and Latin American Spanish.
Along with the accessibility settings for button assignments and subtitles that are also available on the PS4, the PS5 also supports color correction, which allows users to adjust the color. And for supported games, users can adjust their settings in advance using presets.
Additionally, PS5 players will be able to reduce or disable the power of haptic feedback and adaptive triggers on the DualSense controller. There are also improved audio adjustments on the PS5 to give players a better spatial awareness.
In the same blog entry, Sony names some games in which accessibility was already a major issue in the current generation. These include Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us Part 2. The latter has more than 60 accessibility settings, according to Sony, with advanced options that focus on fine motor skills and hearing. On top of that, there were new features that benefited players with impaired vision.
But Sony is not only concerned with the players. The company does not want to exclude employees with disabilities. A program called ABLE@PlayStation was launched for this purpose. “It is an accessibility and all abled inclusion-focused employee network that serves all of SIE,” said Sony.
If you would like to read more deeply into the subject, you can find Sony’s blog entry on accessibility on the company’s official website here.
