Sony unveils Project Leonardo, a "highly customizable" accessibility controller

Project Leonardo is PlayStation's new accessibility controller kit, designed to "help players with disabilities play more easily, more comfortably, and for longer periods on PS5."

Unveiled yesterday on January 4 at CES, Sony's Senior Vice President for platform experience Hideaki Nishino outlined details relating to Project Leonardo in a subsequent blog post. The circular design - aping the PS5 colours - "is built to address common challenges faced by many players with limited motor control," and is highly customizable, allowing players to swap components around to create their own controller layouts.

Project Leonardo works in tandem with the existing DualSense controller. Nishino explains that the kit can be used by itself, either with one or two halves in use at one time, or in direct sequence with the current controller, "in any combination."

Nishino explains that the kit was designed with assistance from well-known accessibility organisations including AbleGamers and SpecialEffect, but is not yet available to buy. The project is "currently in development," and Sony is continuing to seek feedback from the community. There's no word on a release date or price at the moment, but Sony says it will be sharing "additional product features and launch timing in future."

Sony's following in the footsteps of Microsoft's acclaimed Xbox Adaptive controller, which launched in 2018. It's interesting to note, however, that the Xbox offering maintains compatibility across all of Microsoft's platforms, including the Xbox One and Windows, while Project Leonardo is only linked to PS5.

Xbox accessibility extends to its shop tags - and more storefronts should follow suit.