Microsoft is all about getting games into the hands of as many people as possible. Their work on accessibility now extends to the blind and hard of seeing. That’s right: Braille displays are coming to a new type of Xbox Controller.

The patent was filed last year; but just recently became public, and was spotted by German tech site Let’s Go Digital. No official announcements have been made, though the timing is favorable for an E3 reveal. That said, patents don’t necessarily represent real products in development, though in this case, it makes sense. Microsoft has made its gaming platform something for everyone. Everyone talks about Sony winning the console wars right now, but come on. People who have systematically been left out of video gaming because of uncontrollable conditions are playing now for the first time. That’s something to be celebrated.

The Braille Controller, as it’s referred to in the patent, is very much like an ordinary Xbox One gamepad, except on the back there appears to be a sort of robotic insect sticking out of it. This is the Braille display, consisting of both a dot matrix that mechanically reproduces the bumps which players can run their fingers across and a set of swappable paddles allowing for both input and output. The six paddles correspond to the six dot positions on a Braille-coded character, and a user may use them to chord or input text that way, or to receive text communications without moving their fingers off the paddles. Of course, the mechanisms also could be used to send haptic feedback of other types, like directional indicators or environmental effects like screen shake. I wouldn’t mind having something like this on my controller, in fact.

We don’t know for sure when, or if, this controller is coming. If it is, add another point to the column that reads, Microsoft Cares About Accessibility.

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