News hardware Nintendo wanted to copy Xbox: the former boss of the company drops a bomb
Published on 08/17/2022 at 20:30
Long time director of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aimé confided in an American media about the projects that were underway when he left the company. Among them was a controller project largely inspired by a Microsoft product.
About five years ago, Microsoft revolutionized the accessibility of video games by offering sa Xbox Adaptative Handcuffs. This controller like no other allows you to benefit from an immense choice of settings for allow players with disabilities to play comfortablyor just simply to play, since traditional controllers are often not suitable for this kind of situation.
The Redmond firm has thus helped change the lives of thousands of gamers around the worldgiving them the possibility to create themselves the ideal controller, really adapted to their needs.
However, some gamers and watchers have found it unfortunate that the Xbox Adaptive Controller is limited to Xbox consoles and Windows PCs only. Presumably, Nintendo had the idea to remedy this when Reggie Fils-Aimé was the head of the American branch of the company.
Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller
When Nintendo was working on an Xbox-style accessibility controller
Asked by the site Inverse, Reggie Fils-Aimé looks back on his 15 years at the helm of Nintendo of America and necessarily took the opportunity to give some exclusive information. Among them is the evocation a controller focused on accessibility.
Very clearly, Reggie Fils-Aimé does not hide that the main inspiration for this controller came from Microsoft. Nintendo viewed the Xbox Adaptive Controller as “a starting point to create something that would be platform independent and adaptable by any consumer”.
In other words, Nintendo wanted to create a controller focused on accessibility, but could have been used with any platform. “Imagine an adaptive controller that you could play with your latest Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo platform. This is what we were working on three years ago”he explains.
Reggie Fils-Aime
Does Nintendo still have this project in Mario’s pipeline?
Unfortunately, the interview with the former boss of Nintendo of America does not allow us to know more about the progress of this ambitious project. The reason for this is that Reggie Fils-Aimé Now Has No Idea What Nintendo Is Up To Or Not Up To : “I hope the project is still ongoing. I don’t know if it is or not.”he says.
“I also hope that the controller, and the possibility of using it by connecting it to different systems, will be launched on the market and made available to all consumers as soon as possible”concludes Reggie Fils-Aimé, who therefore remains hopeful on the subject.
This information is all the more interesting as it had never leaked before. It is also easy to admit that Nintendo is way behind in terms of accessibility compared to the competition. Microsoft has its Xbox Adaptive Controller, while Sony has made a huge effort in recent years to offer advanced accessibility options within games from its various studios.. Nintendo may be a company that seeks to reach the widest possible audience, it still has some way to go on this point before catching up with its competitors.