Category: Accessible Games
Hello everyone,
I just wanted to report here that Sony, in the most recent PlayStation 4 update, added a Text to Speech feature, and for people with low vision, contrast and Zoom settings. They didn't leave physical disabilities out either with button mapping reassignments to any button.
Unfortunately, the Text to Speech feature was not fully implemented, however it is a start. We can send messages and join games, join a party and share a game with someone, or just chat voice or text. The onscreen keyboard in Messages and Party is fully accessible with the TTS, and those of us who are pushing for accessibility need all the help we can get to tell Sony to improve the interface to read all system functions.
If you have a PlayStation network account, feel free to give your support if you want here:
http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-4-Support/New-PS4-Text-to-speech-feedback-and-ways-in-which-it-can-be/m-p/45062445/highlight/true#M138901
The future is looking pretty optimistic for blind gamers and Sony!
Thanks for posting this. I was just on my way to report on this when I saw your message. I baught a PS4 never even knowing about this until I stumbled upon it while browsing my settings. I'm a huge fan of the zoom and invert colors features. The bold text and contrast options are great too. The Text-to-speech functionality likewise works well, but like Auren said, only for certain aspects. the browser and system interface is still lacking that functionality for the time being, though I'd imagine it wouldn't be hard to implement. The nice thing is zoom and invert colors work in-game also, so any time one has a lot of small text to read it is no longer a problem. Speaking of which I wonder how well the KNFB reader for the iphone would be at recognizing such text. I doubt text-to-speech will ever be implimented in-game, but it's a very interesting possibility if it could. but this is a fantastic step in the right direction. One other thing you can do in game is create screenshots or record video of your gameplay, which you can either upload somewhere or play on your system. One thing I've done is use the screenshots and video options in a game (The Wolf Among us) to capture screenshots of times in the story where I need to make timed choices, or where quicktime events need me to press a certain button. I usually let myself die, then go through and review the video so I know how to proceed so as to not fail, since such prompts appear so fast and all over the screen. It's an amazing way to get things done. Plus, as a purely narrative-driven gamer it's just nice to record video footage of great moments.
I wonder if there'd be a way for totally blind to play something like The Wolf among Us. I love any Teletale game like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, and I wonder if someone like you could write stuff down like the correct sequence of Quicktime events. That'd be epic.
It would be easy enough to write down which buttons work for which choice during dialog, and there's .. probably enough of a pause when you have to choose to realize you have to choose. Quicktime events are a bit trickier. Not all of them are just button presses. There are times when you have to put a large redicle over a small one, then press a button. That can be really difficult. Even with my system of video capture some things are just really hard to see. The other problem is the exploration sections. You move your character with the left analog stick or the ASDF keys, and a redicle you use to investigate certain objects with the mouse or right stick. That can be annoying too.
One place you can go to is www.longplays.org. This website has video playthroughs of all sorts of games, including the Walking Dead and the Wlof Among us. And best of all they are usually quite complete - no cutscene or dialog skipping, and no bloody rediculous commentary."
This iswonderful news, because this means that sony has finally answered my prayers or emails about TTS being available. All though we can just send messages anad join parties, I'm sure there would be an option in maybe some Sony exclussives in the future to have the accessibility option as an option in the game it self. This way we would only need sighted guidence to pick the option for the first time. As far as in game play, maybe they could have an onscreen message announcer. It seems like fighting games won't be the only accessible games any more. Big ups to sony for this one.
For the ones or twos of you reading this, Sony has just launched Version 3.0 of the PS4 firmware. Among its many features is enhanced Text-to-speech functionality. Now the home screen is accessible, as are certain menues, including settings. Individual game menus are not, and many others still keep silent. But it's a big step in the right direction. I only had a moment to play with it, so I'll post more about tts and other accessibility features if there's more to say.
I have long wished that game creators could mix the audio game functions
with their real games. First, because I think even for sighted people it would
add a sense of realism if they could wear headphones and have all the sounds
change around them. Second, it would allow me to play all the fun games that I
see sighted people playing and that I desperately wish I could play. It doesn't
seem like it would be all that difficult to make the sound directional just like the
graphics for certain games. Right?
I agree. In fact many games are pretty high quality in terms of audio. Most games these days are surround sound enabled. Binaural audio would add even more,
though it really mainly works with headphones. I think one of the biggest issues, especially when it comes to big 3D environments is navigation. There's only
so much you can do with naturally occurring audio to create landmarks. Now, games like, for instance, the Walking Dead, or any of those more interactive
narrative experiences; those could much more easily be made accessible. There is some walking around and investigating objects, but much of the gameplay
revolves around making timed decisions on how to act and interact, and pressing on-screen prompts to perform certain actions. All it would take are audio
queues which could be toggled on and off for the sighted and low vision. Actually, the way these button prompts work, I bet even sighted gamers would find
them helpful. The prompts appear pretty much anywhere on screen. But gaming is a very wide-ranging experience. There is certainly a lot that could be done - creatively - with audio. But it's such a visual medium that there'd have to be a lot of push and proffit to make it worth a developer's effort. The fact that Sony even bothered with accessibility features at all is a huge step forward. It's still got a long, long way to go, but it's a great start.
I think it could be done if they wanted to. A lot of the first person shooters
could be made accessible with ambient noise. It would take some getting used
to, but you could do it. Though, even the audio games that use that are kind of
terrible themselves, so maybe this is wishful thinking.
Not being into it myself, I would still like to congratulate Play station for this; Way to go! :)
Just a brief update. The invert colors and Zoom features haven't changed. There's now an option to have automatically scrolling text slow down if you want it to, and the text to speech actually reads the manual, something that sprurised me very much. The areas where tts actually works seem to be random. The manual works, your friends lits and settings work, but your trophy and profile screens don't. Hopefully they continue to add functionality in the future.
Pretty slick.
I'm so happy about this!!! In my dealings with Sony on the Android side, I'm not surprised but am very pleased!! Sony has listened to all bugs I've reported to them which have existed for me in Talkback and they have fixed all of them. They truly do care about accessibility and I have been told that by several Sony representatives I have talked to, over the last year and a half. What I will tell you is, keep e-mailing them. Tell them how much you love the new accessibility services and ask them to please improve menus in games and that sort of thing. Next time I have to e-mail them about a bug, I will talk about this, as well and thank them for all their work to make things accessible for us. Yay, Sony, I'm so happy about this!!
Natalia
Natalia and others:
How can I email Sony? They don't respond on their support forums.
I did hear about Sony adding accessibility features to their PlayStations consuls. While this is definitely a step in the right direction, I feel that implementing a random, partially working text-to-speech engine, which is unreliable at best it seems from others descriptions, is kind of strange. I mean, we can't play the games, but look at the evolution of tech. By now, blind people should be able to play any game a sighted person can. One reason that Sony isn't accessible is that blindness organizations haven't cared to enact legislation. Just like Apple. Apple did make everything accessible, but wasn't that because of organizations? I'm not sure, as I have forgotten. I have similar complaints about TV programming. Not every show on NetFlics features audio description, but yet, close-captioning is everywhere. Yet, when one ventures to the movies, a lot have an accompanying description track. Even on cable, there is no description. Certain people do not enjoy description, so I am probably in the minority here. I, for one like to hear what's going on--maybe my hearing impairment is to blame? Every show should be accessible on cable. Until it is, I will never have it. I would like to see every game be accessible as possible, as I think this would really help to improve the isolation of the blind. We could, for the first time, interact with our sighted counterparts in something, well, exciting! At the same time, Sony should be congratulated for their efforts, and I hope they continue.
Nathan.
This is awesome! I just bought a play station for my brother for Christmas.
Yes, the TTS functionality is still very limited. It's great when selecting things in menus, and the speach itself is easy to read. It even has a reasonable degree of internet browser accessibility which is quite good if you have at least enough vision to use the pointer. I didn't expect accessibility in that area at all, and it was a pleasant surprise. First user manual I’ve been able to read. But many apps, to say nothing of gaming – are still inaccessible. Also what might be helpful would be some form of detachable cursor similar to voiceover or the JAWS cursor. For many areas, if you select an item on the lefct, there may be a block of text on the right. If you could have a cursor recognize blocks of text in other areas, you’d be in a much better position. I wonder who helps soni develop this accessibility. I’d also be interested, though I don’t want an Xbox One, to see how Microsoft’s narrator interacts with that console.eeYes, the TTS functionality is still very limited. It's great when selecting things in menus, and the speach itself is easy to read. It even has a reasonable degree of internet browser accessibility which is quite good if you have at least enough vision to use the pointer. I didn't expect accessibility in that area.
Just remember, while the major companies like soney and Microsoft can implement these accessibility features into their consoles, it's up to the game developers to follow suit in their games. I'm pretty sure that a lot of games for both consoles are developed by other companies, but someone could correct me if I'm wrong. I hope that the two companies continue to improve the accessibility features at the core of their systems, but it will only be a small victory compared to how amazing it would be of the game developers followed up too.
That's true. And you're right, a huge number of games for all systems are developed by third parties for multiple platforms. There are relatively few console "exclusives".