Revolution Offers Hope For Disabled Gamers?

Via Joystiq, an article on Mercury News discussing the possible benefits to disabled gamers via use of Nintendo's unique Revolution control scheme. From the article: "Like many people with spinal-cord injuries that affect all four limbs, Taft retains some use of his arms and hands. But it's not enough for effectively operating the typical two-hand game device. He's confident his relatively strong right hand will be able to manipulate the new controller, which is part of the Revolution game system that's still under development by Nintendo."

Comments

No PC gaming?

[The-Bus]

I imagine there's a much larger existing userbase for input devices for the disabled in the PC world. What prevents someone from using one of these devices for gaming? I'm not too familiar with this kind of stuff but I'm sure there's a sort of trackball . keyboard combo that could be used. You might not innately be as quick as you used to be (or as other players), but you'd be surprised...

When I went to college a fellow student at the end of the hall was very big into games. I believe his console of choice was the Saturn and he played it with an arcade-style joystick. What's surprising about him is that he had a pretty serious congenital disorder: he was born without arms, and just small, working hands at the end of his shoulders. I believe he moved the joystick with his mouth. He was a pretty good player too.

Worthy of mention too, is Pin Interactive's Terraforma, which is a game designed both for sighted and unsighted gamers. Even for sighted gamers, the game offers a high-contrast mode. A playable demo is available.

One of the lead developers of Terraforma mentions in this article that there are other games for the disabled - he specifically mentions MUDs as well as some really neat off-the-wall concepts like games that use a "breating interface".

I'm glad that attention is being paid to this. I don't think it will mean increased business for Nintendo in any measurable term, but then everything isn't about revenue.