AbleGamers Chats with Benjamin Heckendorn

For those that do not know, the Access Controller is a controller that was built for one-handed gamers. It sports five modules that can be repositioned in any of six spots according to each gamer's preference and works on the PC, PS2 and PS3.

But how did this controller become a reality? Ben explains that, "It started with someone who'd come back from Iraq and said that he'd lost an arm and he wanted to play Xbox." Ben then built a controller for him according the veteran's specifications and posted it on his blog. That is when he found out about this group of gamers.

He was surprised at the interest in it. He made a few more of them and ultimately convinced a company to make a product based on it. That product was the Access Controller.

AbleGamers asked whether he planned to make an updated controller, given that the Access Controller came out about a year ago. Ben told us that originally the controller had sticky buttons, but that has been fixed. He also said that they "were going to do an Xbox 360 version," but making things for the Xbox 360 has a lot more hurdles.

Ben explained that the Play Station is easy to develop things for, but the Xbox 360 uses render specific licensing chips inside. This means that nothing is going to work on the Xbox 360 unless Microsoft allows it to work.

Microsoft is protecting their interests here, but it creates a barrier for tinkers, moders, or low volume manufacturing. Ben elaborated saying that "Manufacturing isn't about low volume it's about volume, so if you can't make X number of things then you can't afford to make it."

When asked about whether Microsoft was aware of what they were doing, he responded that he has "talked with them about it, but there hasn't been a whole lot of progress with it."

AbleGamers then asked Ben about making a one handed Wiimote- Nunchuck. Ben says that he's that he's thought about it, but no one has asked for one. He said though that he would be happy to make one if someone asked for it. Ben does this for a living so he only makes things that he knows he can sell or things that people specifically request.

Ben then talked about his latest job. "They basically said ‘I want the buttons over here, I want the D-pad over here, and then put an extra set of the buttons in back'" and they wanted the triggers flipped. He said that the person who requested it had limited mobility in one of their hands and "in a lot of these games, you can't remap the buttons a whole lot... you can change the button set, but you need to choose from a configuration." And that is the main problem; games don't let users remap the buttons the way they want, alienating a whole audience.

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