In a move that will make Xbox One avatars significantly more inclusive for gamers, Microsoft is planning to make wheelchair options available.
The news was confirmed by Xbox head Phil Spencer, who stepped into a conversation between two Twitter users discussing the possibility of creating a petition to bring in a wheelchair option for avatars, stating "no petition needed, we hear you.
This is something we've already looked at, not far off." Shortly after this, Xbox engineering lead Mike Ybarra tweeted a "sneak peek" of the coming update which showed two Xbox avatars in wheelchairs that were not-sosubtly Xbox-themed.
It's also been noted that the avatars depicted in Ybarra's sneak peek appear to be visually improved with more detailed faces, leading fans to wonder if there's a more significant upgrade to be announced.
It wasn't stated when the updated avatars will be made available but the next major Xbox One and PC update called Anniversary is coming in early August so there's perhaps a chance we'll hear more about these improvements then.
Planning to include this avatar option is a positive move on the part of Microsoft that will make an important contribution towards improving gamer representation on the Xbox platform.
As per reports, the tweets that followed Ybarra's post were mostly positive, complementing Microsoft on its move towards diversity, although many commenters had one thing to say: the wheelchairs were old fashioned looking and ugly. "That's like an old person hospital chair," tweeted Xbox Addict, while another person asked Microsoft, "Please don't make us use ugly chairs."
Microsoft was accused of being "out of touch" with its users in the comments that followed, with Xbox One fans sending pictures of themselves in their wheelchairs to demonstrate what a modern-looking unit looks like.
No comments:
Post a Comment