News hardware Nintendo wanted to copy Xbox: the former boss of the company drops a bomb
Longtime director of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aimé confided to an American media the projects underway when he left the company. Among them was a controller design largely inspired by a Microsoft product.
About five years ago, Microsoft revolutionized the accessibility of video games by offering its Xbox adaptive controller. This controller like no other allows you to benefit from a wide choice of settings for allow players with disabilities to play comfortablyor simply to play, since traditional controllers are often not suitable for this type of situation.
The Redmond company has so has helped change the lives of thousands of players around the worldgiving them the opportunity to create the ideal controller themselves, truly suited to their needs.
However, some gamers and observers have found it a shame that the Xbox Adaptive Controller is limited to only Xbox consoles and Windows PCs. Allegedly, Nintendo came up with the idea to make up for it when Reggie Fils-Aimé headed the company’s US subsidiary.
Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller
When Nintendo was working on an Xbox-style accessibility controller
Asked by the site Inversion, Reggie Fils-Aimé retraces his 15 years at the helm of Nintendo of America and necessarily took the opportunity to give some exclusive information. Among these is evocation a controller focused on accessibility.
Very clearly, Reggie Fils-Aimé is not hiding it the main inspiration for this controller came from Microsoft. Nintendo saw the Xbox Adaptive Controller as “A starting point to create something that is platform independent and adaptable to any consumer”.
In other words, Nintendo wanted to create an accessibility-centric controller, but it could have been used with any platform. “Imagine an adaptive controller that you can play with on 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 the Mario pipeline?
Unfortunately, the interview with the former boss of Nintendo of America does not allow us to learn more about the progress of this ambitious project. The reason is that Reggie Fils-Aimé now has no idea what Nintendo is up to or not : “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 confident on the subject.
This information is all the more interesting as it has never been leaked before. It is also easy to admit Nintendo is far behind in terms of accessibility compared to the competition. Microsoft has its own Xbox Adaptive Controller, while Sony has made a huge effort in recent years to offer advanced accessibility options within the games of its various studios.. Nintendo could be a company trying to reach the widest possible audience, it still has a long way to go on this point before catching up with its competitors.