Accessibility Apocalypse: What Could Happen If We Lose Xbox

Xbox has led the mainstream gaming accessibility movement, but have been making baffling business decisions. What could this mean for gamers with disabilities?

Oct 16, 2025

Starting with the Xbox One generation, Microsoft’s Xbox brand has been the main character of X (formerly known as Twitter) on and off for quite some time, and not in a good way. They’ve burned a lot of bridges with their fans with their business practices, making them the least popular major gaming platform in this new generation. However, they’ve also been an accessibility powerhouse, and have changed the lives of so many gamers with disabilities, including myself, who may have had to say goodbye to the hobby otherwise. In this article, I’m going to explore many sides of the issue, and why I’m terrified for my future as a disabled gamer, as well as the future of other disabled gamers, if the Xbox brand kicks the bucket.

Why is Accessibility Important?

Everyone deserves the social and self-care benefits of gaming. Games are more fun when everyone can play, and everyone deserves to play.

Also, we are all temporarily-abled. I wish everyone a long and healthy life. And if we want gaming tournaments in nursing homes, we need to talk about accessibility now.

Accessibility is great for building a larger consumer-base as well. As a disabled person, I’m not going to buy a game I can’t play. If games are accessible, they can be played by more people. The more players there are, the more money gaming makes and the stronger the industry becomes, meaning more jobs and more cool games.

A Disabled Gamer’s Love Letter to Xbox

A Rocky Start

Last gaming generation, my boyfriend-now-husband picked Xbox One. I was still too broke as a young college student to afford a console of my own. I was very sassy about his choice to choose Microsoft that generation not only because of my love of fighting games and Street Fighter V’s status as a Sony PlayStation 4 exclusive, but also the bad press Xbox was getting with poor treatment of physical release games that we now see as standard today (just because it’s standard, doesn’t mean I agree with it). I did not have an entirely negative perception of Xbox. I enjoyed playing Dance Dance Revolution on an original Xbox at a friend’s house growing up and I played a lot of fighting games on my younger brother’s Xbox 360. It frankly wasn’t my place to be so sassy because it was his console he bought with his money.

Years after release, we split a Playstation 4 for the exclusives, though he ended up using it way more than I ever did. He ultimately abandoned the Xbox One that he so strongly defended at the start, leaving it for me to spend more time than I would like to admit making a fully automated slime ranch in the free Xbox “game of the month” Slime Rancher that was a timed Xbox exclusive.

However, little did I know my husband choosing the Xbox One all those years ago would save gaming for me.

A Saving Grace

In 2021, my world was turned upside down by suffering a debilitating and permanent hand injury. I can no longer use fine motor skills, such as writing, typing, or using the touch screen on my phone, without huge amounts of pain. Thankfully, I quickly found assistive technology that allowed me to continue working on the computer and using my phone (I am typing this article using my voice now).

However, finding assistive technology for gaming was a little bit harder. When I went searching online, I would mostly find people giving the answer to just give up on gaming and find a new hobby. I have other hobbies. I like reading, watching TV, exercising, spending time with friends, gardening with help from my family, and spending time in nature. I used to like drawing, however my disability has made that a painful activity that I can no longer do for long periods of time. I used to like playing sports, but I can no longer hold a tennis racket or golf club. While sad, I’ve accepted saying goodbye to those things. I did not want to say goodbye to gaming. While the fun, little adventures you go on while playing a video game are nice, what is more wonderful is the time spent with family and friends and the connections that you find through gaming. I’ve met most of my friends through gaming and I’ve met my husband through gaming. I know these people wouldn’t abandon me if I couldn’t game anymore, but I cherished the nights we all played Pokémon Puzzle League, Mario Kart, or Mario Party together. I didn’t want to lose that.

Thanks to accessibility creators on YouTube, I learned about the Xbox Adaptive Controller (XAC) and Xbox’s Controller Assist mode. The XAC allowed me to use peripherals with large buttons from the Logitech Adaptive Gaming Kit that I could attach to a Velcro board. I can tap these large buttons with the braces that I wear on my hands, causing significantly less pain than pressing tiny buttons on a regular Xbox controller. The XAC is analog, meaning that I could set it up with no need for Xbox software and I can use an adapter to make it work on Nintendo games. What can’t be done on Nintendo consoles is the Xbox Controller Assist mode. This mode allows the XAC to be paired with a regular Xbox controller, allowing both controllers to be used as one. I use this mode to control the joysticks on a regular Xbox controller using my feet while pressing the large buttons of the XAC and Logitech Adaptive Gaming Kit with my braces. This is a godsend when playing games on Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles, since high quality analog joysticks for the XAC are out of my price range.

It is because of this commitment to accessibility (and the Xbox timed-exclusive early access launch of Slime Rancher 2) that I bought my first Xbox console of my own in 2022. The PlayStation 5 had not yet come out with their PlayStation Access Controller, Brook had not yet come out with their adapter to make the XAC work on PlayStation 5, and Sony did not implement backwards compatibility for PlayStation 4 controllers to play PlayStation 5 games so I can use my PlayStation 4 adapter to use my XAC on the new console. Because of these barriers to accessibility at that point in time, the PlayStation 5 was a useless brick to me as a disabled gamer. Not only did the Xbox Series X I bought have accessible packaging, I could fully set up the console with my XAC, something that you still can’t do to this day with a new PlayStation 5 and a PlayStation Access Controller.

Because of the hard work of the Xbox accessibility team and accessibility advocates, I didn’t have to say goodbye to most of the games that I enjoyed playing before becoming disabled and I can still enjoy game nights with friends and being part of the gaming community. If you are reading this article and played a role in making any of these products, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. My slimes and Digimon team thank you as well, as they definitely wouldn’t be seeing me if it weren’t for you.

Xbox: A Ticking Timebomb?

Despite its great work in gaming accessibility, Microsoft has been taking advantage of its workers and its fans’ goodwill with baffling business decisions.

Cutting Off Its Nose Despite Its Face

Xbox shuttered beloved game studios, such as Tango Gameworks and Arcane Austin (thankfully, Tango was saved by Krafton). They also canceled the highly anticipated Perfect Dark game and closed the game’s studio along with it. Microsoft has laid off more than 15,000 workers this year alone from the greater company as a whole. It is absolutely horrible when the amazing people who make our favorite games lose their livelihoods. Less important, but still terrible, is losing hope for a sequel to a favorite game. This can cause anger and frustration towards the Xbox brand, and those are not things that tend to move units off of shelves.

They are also having more and more “Xbox Exclusive Games” release on its competitor, the PlayStation 5. I’m happy to see this as both a fan of these games and an accessibility advocate because it widens the audience of these games to players who own only a Playstation 5 and those who can only play using a Playstation Access Controller. However, one could argue this devalues Xbox consoles. If one can get you games anywhere, why get an Xbox if one does not have an accessibility need to use one?

Price Hikes

Xbox console prices have been raised twice this year, making the Xbox Series X that I paid $500 for in 2022 now $650. There are many reasons why I am a console gamer. I enjoy having a high-powered machine that’s cheaper than buying a high-powered gaming Personal Computer (PC). Space isn’t cheap where I live, and the only desk that I have in my house needs to be dedicated to my work computer. I also sit at a desk for most of my workday, and I frankly don’t want to be doing that while I’m relaxing and playing video games (and I’m getting older and my back hurts), so I’d rather play them on a nice comfy couch. I understand there are likely political reasons as to why these prices have gone up, and all of my reasons for being a console gamer are related to being a working adult trying to make ends meet in this awful economy. At the price point that the Xbox Series X is now, I certainly wouldn’t be buying my console over again if I was buying one today. I would assume other consumers may be thinking the same way.

While I have never used Game Pass, I’ve heard of people who get Xbox consoles solely to use this service because it can be a cheaper alternative if you’re someone who plays a lot of different games. However, Xbox has been making gamers question that deal by raising the price of its Game Pass Ultimate subscription from $20 to $30 per month. The entire purpose of Game Pass, at least from my understanding, was to get Xbox consoles into people’s houses due to it being a good deal. While one could argue that it could still be a good deal if you play one $70 AAA game per month or more than two $30 indie titles, a lot of us have a lot less spending power in this economy than we have had in the past and it may not be worth it for a lot of people.

These price hikes affect able-bodied consumers and hit consumers with disabilities even harder, as many of us have high medical care and daily-living costs as a result of our disabilities. I invite you to read Grant Stoner’s recent article on the topic that interviews many disabled gamers about their experiences with this. The article is linked below in the sources list. While I am privileged to be able to support myself financially by working using assistive technology, surprise medical bills come up fairly often for me, taking up what money I could have spent on gaming. This leaves me in a position where the rising cost of gaming causes me to miss out on new AAA releases, waiting for them to go on sale or for when I get a gift card for my birthday or Christmas.

One could argue game prices have risen to the price they should have been by inflation, which makes sense. I have also heard from someone in the industry that these higher prices are better for game developers, which is great to hear. However, the average person’s spending power isn’t what it used to be in our “K-shaped” economy. Government benefits for those who have disabilities and cannot work a full-time job have not risen to the level they need to be for comfortable living, let alone to buy higher priced games. Unless there are some huge changes in the economy and how we support those who need government assistance, I don’t foresee this business model lasting long, at least if Xbox plans to serve anyone but the 1%.

Where Does This Leave Us?

From what I’ve seen online, Xbox is the laughingstock and punching bag of the gaming space discourse because of these business practices. While I’ve seen a lot of negativity towards Nintendo and Sony, I’ve seen the most negativity towards Microsoft. This extends to the real world as well. Out of all of my friends, I’m the only one who owns an Xbox Series console and the only other person I’ve ever heard of owning an Xbox that I know in real life is my friend’s niece. My husband lives in the same house as my Xbox, but he refuses to use it (except for timed exclusives like Palworld and Hi Fi Rush). He spent $500 of his own gift money to get a Playstation 5, even though it has most of the same games as my Xbox and overheats daily while my Xbox remains cool and perfectly functioning even when playing graphically intensive games. The man who once intensely defended Xbox in discussions with me in college, now laughs at the fact that we have one in our house the following generation. If that isn’t a perfect case study for consumer perception, I don’t know what is.

I don’t take any of the Xbox hate personally. Heck, I am one of the few of my friends with an infamous Nintendo Wii-U and still play that console pretty frequently (Thank you, Pretendo Network!). What’s even sadder, as I have more friends with Wii-Us than Xbox Series consoles. While I know the Xbox Series X is a good console for me and would have bought it even if I wasn’t disabled, I know that its currently small user pool cannot keep this ecosystem going.

I can’t help but to wonder if Microsoft is purposefully making questionable business decisions to write Xbox off as a tax write off and/or squeeze as much money out of its fans before it dies. Of course, this is not something we may ever know. They claim they’re going to make a next generation console, but I tend not to believe that because it could be just said to appease investors. But what I do know is that the disabled community, including myself, is going to get hit really hard if the Xbox ecosystem dies.

What We Stand to Lose if We Lose Xbox

If Microsoft turns Xbox into a tax write off, we could lose long-term support for the XAC, Logitech Adaptive Gaming Kit for Xbox, and the Xbox Adaptive Joystick. It would not be the first time we lost support for accessible gaming equipment. I was using the 3-D Rutter foot mouse until the company appeared to go under, as the website and servers where one can download their software for the mouse and computer no longer exist and there is no physical media alternative. Many kind people have sent me the company’s application (app) from Dropbox, but it needs to connect to a server that doesn’t exist anymore to download the information. I was still able to use the device for quite some time after the website went down, but it eventually broke, and I had no customer service to contact. I shutter at the thought of this happening to Xbox’s beloved assistive technologies.

“But Doesn’t Logitech Have A Playstation Version of The Adaptive Gaming Kit?”

Yes, but you are getting less and are paying more per button. The Xbox version of the Adaptive Gaming Kit is $100 ($8.33 per button), includes 12 buttons total and 2 Velcro Boards (one flexible, one rigid). The Playstation version is $80 ($10 per button), includes 8 buttons total, and 1 rigid Velcro board. This is bad not only for gamers with disabilities who need more buttons, but also those who serve the disabled community professionally and therefore need to order more buttons to serve more clients.

“But Doesn’t Playstation Have An Accessible Controller?”

Yes, but the PlayStation Access Controller is very different from the XAC. The XAC is $100, has 2 big buttons on the top of the controller, in addition to a d-pad, start and select, and button remapping settings, 3.5 millimeter (mm) auxiliary (aux) port for every button on the controller, 2 Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports for joystick peripherals, and is compatible with PC and other consoles when using an adapter. The Playstation Access Controller is $90, has smaller buttons in circular formation on top of the controller, four 3.5mm aux ports, no USB ports for peripherals, not enough buttons for every button on the controller, difficulties connecting to PC and other consoles even when using an adapter, and cannot be used to set up a new Playstation 5.

While the PlayStation Access Controller’s smaller shape and fewer aux ports would not be a good choice for me as someone who requires the use of large buttons and peripherals to play games, I know it’s been a great help to other disabled gamers and I am very happy this controller exists. However, it cannot be the only option, as accessible gaming is not a one size fits all. There also is not a modern one-handed controller option through Sony like there is for the Xbox through their Xbox Adaptive Joystick and the Nintendo Switch with their Joy-Con.

But Doesn’t Nintendo Have Something Similar to the XAC?

Yes again, but there are a lot of key differences that may not make the Hori Flex Controller for Nintendo Switch work for every player. As mentioned before, XAC is $100 and has 2 big buttons on the top of the controller, in addition to a d-pad, start, select, home, and button remap option button. It also has good stock (at least at this time) and works with many 1st and 3rd party peripherals. The Hori Flex is $250 and has been out of stock on the Hori website since launch. It has the same buttons as the XAC on top, just smaller and including other face buttons and bumpers, but has been reported to need specialized joysticks. There are also additional button remapping and installation options available for the XAC when using Xbox consoles, but not for the Hori Flex when using Nintendo Switch consoles. The final kicker is it is only available in the United States of America through the AbleGamers shop, which some may not want to shop at after the accusations featured in a recent IGN article, which I have linked in my source list. Given the significant downsides to using the controller, it appears to not be a viable alternative to the XAC for all.

So, What Happens Next?

I wish I could provide you with an uplifting and empowering answer, but unfortunately, I don’t have one. Microsoft is likely going to do what shareholders want. The politicians in office are going to give tax breaks to and impose tariffs on whomever they want to.

All we can do is make our voices heard. I think it’s important we give the Xbox accessibility team good press for their incredible work in hopes they can keep it going, even if it cannot be at Xbox itself. It could also inspire Nintendo, Sony, and third-parties to make similar accessible products to fill in the gaps. Supporting creators with disabilities and those who advocate for accessibility can also help educate others on the importance of supporting accessibility initiatives in the long run so everyone can play. Also, if you can vote in your local elections, consider voting for leaders that support accessibility initiatives and don’t reward mega-corporations for treating their employees and consumers badly.

People with disabilities have an incredible history of advocating for our right to exist in traditionally able-bodied spaces. While we definitely have bigger fish to fry in terms of advocating for our rights in our current political climate, gaming is still important. Everyone deserves fun, self-care adventures and to enjoy time with friends in between the daily battles we face each day just trying to survive. Whatever happens with Xbox, and the world for that matter, just remember that our community has survived much worse and we will get through this by working together.

Sources:

Disclaimers:

Everything in this article are my personal experiences and opinions, therefore are not to be taken as facts.
I am not sponsored by any companies, manufacturers, creators, or organizations mentioned.
Everyone’s situation is different. Accessibility isn’t “one size fits all”.
This is not medical advice.
Please talk to a doctor first before making decisions regarding your health and/or engaging in a new activity that may affect your health
If you feel pain or sickness from an activity, please stop and speak with a doctor
If you’re experiencing a medical emergency, please call your local emergency services or, if you are in the USA, 911.
If you’re experiencing a psychiatric emergency, please call your local emergency services or, if you are in the USA, 911 or 988.
For information regarding medical, mental health, and accessibility services in the USA, please contact your insurance company, 211, or National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI: 1-800-950-6264).

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