Q.
Why does Nintendo persist in lagging behind the
accessibility efforts of Xbox and Sony and how can it make amends with Switch 2?
SightlessKombat: There are a myriad of reasons as to why Nintendo might be lagging behind in the accessibility space, whether that’s due to cultural or language barriers theoretically making the concepts harder to integrate, or whether it’s due to budgetary or company- based practices not allowing any creators
that know about accessibility to actually put the elements needed into Nintendo products (including games).
Nintendo was once way ahead of the accessibility game with it’s NES Hands Free controller
“I don’t doubt that they would be industry leaders for accessibility with even just a very small bit of joining the dots”
Ian Hamilton
Laura Dale: Nintendo is a tricky company to talk about in terms of accessibility. The company has for nearly two decades now been very focused on making games more broadly games understandable and approachable to players young and old, with varying degrees of existing video game knowledge. The Wii and Wii U era of Nintendo was explicitly focused on making games more playable by more people, a context in which their dragging their heels on accessibility feels all the more strange. I get that they believe motion controls open gaming up to more people, and they’re reluctant to wrestle with the ways that clashes with disabled player accessibility, but their unwillingness to invest in other areas of I don’t know how true this is today, but a story that sticks with me is that a Retro employee once talked in an interview about how he was part of a team that pitched a Metroid game to Nintendo inspired by Portal, at the height of that game’s success. The Nintendo executives in that meeting responded with confusion, apologising, and stating that they don’t really play other companies games, or pay too much attention to what they’re up to. They hadn’t heard of Portal, it wasn’t a Nintendo game.
Nintendo has always seemed like a very insular company, focused on their own projects and uninterested in what other studios feel progress should look like. This has led to them innovating in unexpected ways, but has also led to them failing to keep up with modern advancements seen elsewhere in the industry. They are, in my opinion, the company most holding back video game accessibility advancements from becoming industry standards. It’s a shame, as Nintendo of America really does seem to, historically and in recent years, care about accessibility. There’s obviously the NES Hands Free Controller from the 80’s, spearheaded by NOA, but also Reggie Fils Amie in recent years discussing NOA’s
28 | MCV/DEVELOP April/May 2024
attempt to create a cross platform accessibility controller in collaboration with Xbox and PlayStation. There’s a desire to innovate, but seemingly nobody pushing that messaging to the company’s top leadership in a way that resonates for them.
Ian Hamilton: Console accessibility has really only been a meaningful thing since 2015, we’re for which it was a meaningful thing at launch, really in their infancy. All consoles still have a long way to go before they catch up with the level of accessibility expected in other areas of tech like smartphones and desktop PCs, even smart TVs. So as the years progress and we move more solidly into the era of hardware and operating systems developed with accessibility in mind from the outset, I have no doubt at all that we have some really exciting progress still ahead of us.
Stacey Jenkins: While players are sometimes disappointed by the level of accessibility options in Nintendo games, the company has some great examples of accessibility by design in their games. From character, hero or class choice in games like Mario Wonder or the Mario + Rabbids series, to the meter that visualises how much noise you’re making in Breath of the Wild, there is a lot of innovation there. I think it’s also important to recognise that culture around disability and accessibility varies around the world, and these kinds of huge culture shifts take time.
Ian Hamilton: great deal that’s wonderful for accessibility just in how they’re designed, and they already have a philosophy of designing with younger and older players in mind. When they intentionally tackle accessibility, for example the system level remapping and zoom functionality on the Switch, they do an outstanding job. So I don’t doubt for a second that they would be industry leaders for accessibility with even just
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