Sony have announced their new PS5 controller, currently codenamed Project Leonardo, which they describe as a “highly customizable accessibility controller kit”. The release date and price are, at the time of writing, yet to be announced.
In a recent blog post, Sony describe Project Leonardo as including several different joystick caps, and different button caps, with different shapes and sizes, that may make it a more accessible control option for some players.
The base of the Leonardo is flat, so that it should fit onto a table or wheelchair tray, and it can also be attached onto mounts with an AMPS fixing. AMPS is fixing that uses a rectangular pattern of four holes. The analog stick position can be changed, with the distance from the analog stick to the buttons being adjustable. It is also possible to adjust the analog stick orientation, and there are button remapping and profile options, with the possibility of mapping the same action to multiple buttons, or multiple actions to one button. Players will be able to create three different profile options and can switch between them by pressing the profile button.
Players may connect two Project Leonardo controllers at the same time, and also add in a standard PS5 controller, to have up to three devices connected at the same time, with all controlling the same character. This has the potential to allow players to play cooperatively with others, similar to Xbox’s Copilot option, and also to try positioning the controls in different ways, such as one Leonardo by each hand.
Project Leonardo also includes four 3.5mm jack ports; this will enable players to have the option to plug in a variety of compatible accessibility switches and analog sticks.
As more information is made available, please use the ‘Project Leonardo’ tag on the website to find more information.
*Update – on 18/05/23 PlayStation shared more information on the now named ‘Access Controller’. New images and information on the UI that will allow players to customise how they use the Access controller on PlayStation 5, can be found at the links below:
https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/accessories/access-controller/
*Update – on 13/07/2023 PlayStation announced that the Access Controller would be available for pre-order 21/07/2023 and release 06/12/2023:
https://blog.playstation.com/2023/07/13/access-controller-for-ps5-launches-globally-on-december-6/
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