The accessibility options for the PS5 and DualSense controller have been detailed in an official Sony Interactive Entertainment blog post.
"People across all walks of life may have a visible or invisible disability. According to the WHO, roughly 1 billion people or 15% of the world’s population live with some form of disability," the blog post begins. "Chances are you or your friends, families, or colleagues have experienced, or will experience some form of disability in your lives. It’s simply part of the human condition and at SIE we have a passion to work towards improving accessibility within our products and services and within our company."
Building on the settings that are available on the PS4, Sony outlines several accessibility options that will be available on the PS5, including voice dictation and Screen Reader features.
"PlayStation 5 will offer a voice dictation feature to quickly input text without the use of a virtual keyboard. Simply speak the words and they'll appear on-screen. Screen Reader provides blind and low vision users with options to hear on-screen text, while deaf and hard of hearing users can type text messages, which will be spoken out loud to other party members."
These features will support multiple languages on the PS5 globally, including English (US and UK), Japanese, German, Italian, France French, Canadian French, Spanish, and Latin American Spanish. The next-gen console will also include accessibility settings for Button assignments and closed captions just like the PS4, along with support for colour correction to adjust colour settings.
When the DualSense PS5 controller was first announced, Sony revealed that it would feature haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. Several upcoming PS5 games will be making use of the new controller features, with the most recent example coming from Godfall developer Counterplay Games. The post details that the force of the haptic feedback and adaptive triggers can be reduced or turned off to suit the needs of the player.
Sony goes on to highlight working with leading accessibility consultants and experts such as Brandon Cole and Paul Lane, and also points to Naughty Dog "who have been at the forefront of accessibility" with games such as Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and The Last of Us 2. Ahead of the console's launch, it's great to see some confirmation regarding which accessibility options we can expect.
Here's how audio description within games could make them more accessible for blind and low vision players.
