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Microsoft's Moving Xbox Ad Was the Best Thing About the Super Bowl (cnet.com)

Mark Serrels, writing for CNET: Super Bowl 53 has come and gone and, for me at least, there was one clear highlight. This Microsoft commercial. [...] Essentially a commercial for Microsoft's Xbox Adaptive Controller, this ad follows up on an earlier ad from the Christmas period, which highlights young kids with limited mobility playing video games. It's incredible.

It tells the story of kids with limited mobility and their love for video games. All kids love video games and if you're a person with limited mobility, video games can often provide a pathway to experiences that are often difficult in the real world. But in some cases, particular types of limited mobility can make even the games themselves difficult to play -- which is where the Xbox Adaptive Controller comes in.
Further reading: Xbox wire; and Why Xbox spent a year designing the Adaptive Controller packaging.

27 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This was an entertaining game dominated by the defenses of two really good football teams. I'm sorry that you dorks are incapable of appreciating that most people aren't enterained by World of Warcraft or stupid TV shows about space travel 300 years in the future.

    1. Re:Idiots by dcw3 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Agreed, it's not often you get to see a good defensive battle anymore.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    2. Re:Idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As if watching a bunch of muscle-heads fight over a ball is somehow a higher class of entertainment.

      At least with video games, you are making the tactical decisions yourself.

    3. Re:Idiots by mukinrestak · · Score: 2

      Given the US-centric nature of US football vs the international appeal of video games and stupid space shows, I'd be willing to bet that more people care about Superman 64, Lexx, or Cleopatra 2525 than the Super Bowl.

  2. Missed It by dcw3 · · Score: 2

    I just wanted to say that Maroon 5 sucked live, even though I like all the songs they played. Other than the eye candy for the ladies, it was one of the most forgettable halftimes in memory.

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    1. Re:Missed It by dcw3 · · Score: 2

      It's all about the revenue...how many eyeballs can the show attract. A lot of folks watch just for the commercials, which have gotten worse in the last few years. I think a lot of women watch the SB who normally don't watch football under other circumstances...it's a party.

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  3. Wrong by atomicalgebra · · Score: 2

    The best commercial was the mountain killing the bud knight.

  4. Robot obsession? by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    At least 3 co's featured robots or androids (lower-case) in their ads. The child-bot was featured twice, and creepy both times. Hawking insurance I think.

    Another bot ad was a big cellphone telecom, I forgot which; and a 3rd was somebody worried about a robot taking his job during a bad dream. I think it was hawking a home security system. It had a dumb catch-line along the lines of: "You have enough worries outside, at least make your home secure."

    1. Re:Robot obsession? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 2

      And one of those worries was Alexa/Google always listening. And they were selling an IoT security system.

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  5. This is why JavaScript remains off by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is not correct, highlights a very minority opinion, and belongs on the toilet paper of some insufferable blogger's tackily decorated rental mobile home.

  6. Re:U.S. football damages lives. by Kokuyo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At least people care about football athletes. Try cheerleading if you really want to feel expendable.

  7. Re: Jock sniffers are the worsr... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Star Wars peaked early, specifically in that episode where Picard used the Tardis to help Frodo escape from the Cylons so he could save Princess Leia from Thanos.

  8. An advert was the highlight? by The123king · · Score: 3, Funny

    Super Bowl 53 has come and gone and, for me at least, there was one clear highlight. This Microsoft commercial.

    I guess the game of Handegg was pretty uninspiring then.

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    1. Re:An advert was the highlight? by barc0001 · · Score: 2

      > I guess the game of Handegg was pretty uninspiring then.

      Pretty much yep. It was like the football equivalent of watching a 90s era NHL game against the New Jersey Devils playing their patented neutral zone trap bullshit.

  9. Let's maybe talk about what belongs on /. of it? by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The controller, I mean?

    Since I've been creating input devices for people who cannot use "normal" ones for one reason or another for many years now, I'm curious. How close are they to actually providing an interface that offers a comparable accessibility to people with reduced mobility or fine motor skills? What sorts of input do they already provide?

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  10. Re:Let's maybe talk about what belongs on /. of it by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd expect to see one at a GameStation near you pretty soon. I'd be very curious to hear about your work. How, for example, do you deal with the "smoothing" problem? With differentiating between small muscle or neurological impulses and the significant signal that people actually want action for, as quickly as possible, without waiting too long to accumulate a valid signal? I'm looking at https://www.sciencedirect.com/..., which gives a good detailed analysis of the problem. The necessary delay to accumulate a reliable signal is roughly 200 milliseconds. That is fairly slow for a reactive "twitch" combat game.

    Is it comparable to the delay of electro-mechanical devices you've used? I'm quite curious if you've seen limits to response time with your techniques, or to hear what basic mechanical or electrical designs you use. With some luck, if they're continuing with this project, perhaps they would provide some funding or consulting work for children their design does not quite work for.

  11. Re:Let's maybe talk about what belongs on /. of it by Dracolytch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They're really nice: The controller base looks and feels very solidly built. The stand-out bits are that it has USB, so you can plug in some existing devices, but more importantly every button and trigger has a 3.5mm plug associated with it, so that you can attach any custom pedal/button/switch/lever/etc for which you can hack in a 3.5mm jack.

    This is good for games, but it's also good as the core for other types of customized input arrangements.

    ~D

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  12. Re:17 years too late by Higaran · · Score: 2

    Dude, go play fortnight or what ever the game of the week is and there is probably a bunch of kids using this thing to totally own your ass.

  13. Re:Slashdot = Microsft Sponsor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Evil Micro$oft making their products available for children with disabilities, the nerve!!

  14. Re:17 years too late by Merk42 · · Score: 2

    This is Slashdot, Microsoft can never do the right thing!

  15. Re:U.S. football damages lives. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

    Why do they insist on all the armour that makes injuries worse? Rugby isn't great but it's not nearly as bad as American Football.

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  16. Re:Star Wars is fantasy. Aka sci-fi's retarded sis by jellomizer · · Score: 2

    The key rule for Science Fiction is that you should only break one law of physics.
    Star Trek kinda merged all the Science fiction tropes together, this wasn't that big of deal, until people started to put the Star Trek Universe connected into so sort of Canonical set of events.

    Oddly enough until Deep Space 9, with its over reaching story arc. Star Trek didn't worry too much about canon. They would do a temporary solving of the problem at hand, then run off to a new place not worrying about the consequences of their actions, and never looking back. So sure they can travel in time in one episode, and the next episode say it is impossible, and if the writers were very clever, they would give a tech-tech explanation on why it doesn't work this time (something about quantum).

    But with DS9, the remaining seasons of TNG, and Voyager, and Enterprise. Everything needed to start to fit together somehow. This which worked for DS9, hurt the other shows.

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  17. Respectifully disagree by neo-mkrey · · Score: 3

    The best thing about the Super Bowl was the Bud Light/Game of Thrones crossover ad.

  18. Re: Jock sniffers are the worsr... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wow.

    This is Slashdot, man. You gotta know your science fiction better than that.

    It peaked when Buck Rogers stole the Galactica to save the Minbari from Battlefield Earth.

    Picard was like, three years later.

  19. Missed opportunity. by sunking2 · · Score: 2

    The kid should have been shown killing someone at in Fortnite and then a cut screen of Ninja screaming hacker. It's not like he was afraid to cash in do silly cameos.

    1. Re:Missed opportunity. by Cytotoxic · · Score: 2

      I like your version better. Less sappy. More relevant to the youth audience. And it could have real emotion instead of the staged emotion of "look at the poor handicapped kid".

      Heck, if you wanted you could even do it for real... have the kid play Ninja with a bunch of his friends watching, and then when he finally gets a kill against Ninja they would all go crazy. Then it wouldn't feel so heavy-handed. Of course the real target audience probably wasn't gamers or parents of kids with special needs that could benefit from the controller. The audience was probably potential Microsoft investors - looking to create a little brand good will with the almost-PSA ad.

      Hey, Microsoft - if you adopt his idea, don't forget to kick some cash toward sunking2. It's a good idea for an ad.

  20. Re:Jock sniffers are the worsr... by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 3, Funny

    An ad played during a jock-sniffing contest is now news for nerds?

    My kingdom for a way of giving wedgies online.