Re: request to nintendo: accessibility addon for 3ds
The problem is anyone with any actual influence over the developement of nintendo's consoles is buried 200 feet down in a concrete bunker under a mountain in Japan, or at least they might as well be for all the practical notice they take of anyone's opinions.
Even when, in 2007 I managed to get through to the central office of nintendo Uk (which took quite some arts of persuasion on my part), and even though all I was suggesting was a simple click menu feature for the wii, there was no way that even within the same company the major development section could be accessed at all.
So, short of breaking into that sealed bunker with a reinforced tank and lots of explosives, I doubt any access requests to nintendo will be heard at all.
Besides, as has already been said, the ps4 is not! getting a screen reader, it's getting a basic tts chat feature. This will just read chat messages between players on the playstation network, it will not parse on screen game text, indeed from the information I've seen on the feature I'm not even certain it is available within the actual game software to pass text to the tts that doesn't come from the in game chat, ---- and of course don't forget that these days games are far more than just text, there's a huge 3D graphics and movement thing which would take some creative audio design to become accessible (certainly not impossible, but far more work than the fat cats would be willing to put in without an incentive.
Failing some sort of change in the law, I don't myself see Nintendo, sony or even Microsoft's game development division particularly including access, sinse the almighty prophet margin just isn't there, and that is the only reason these companies do anything.
I've heard several times over the last ten years how this company or that major software house is "intereste d" in accessibility, or is "going to implement" such and such in their next project, and bugger all has ever come of it because at the bottom line, it just doesn't sell.
Myself I still see access as the province of the independent developers. The smaller companies who don't just go with whatever their marketing monkies tell them will most appeal to a certain demographic but are actually willing to put some reason, love and creativity into what they're doing, and either experiment with audio output for it's undoubted virtues (like the producers of audio dramas), or would be willing to make necessary access changes to their game for the extra audience which would, on the scale of sales that independent games have make a difference to them, or just be willing to add access because they want as many people as possible to appreciate what they have put their time and creativity into, (just with a dark room)..
So, access on the 3Ds or ps4? I personally doubt it. But more fun an interesting stuff for Ios and android? most certainly!
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