Revolution as Rehab for Spinal Cord Injuries
With everyone all in a flap about the Xbox 360, and the hardware inside it, and can the PS3 compete…at times I lose myself in the specs and forget the entire point of consoles: to bring video game entertainment to the public. It’s no fancier or no more jargon-laden than that.
For some of the public, the question is not graphical capabilities, but basic accessibility, and I’m not talking about the waiting list at Best Buy for the big white box. The oft technologically snorted at Revolution, while it may not have the revving power of the other two next-gens is expected to come in at a much lower price than either the 360 or the PS3, already giving it one accessibility mark in its favour. What I didn’t think about, however, was how the new controller that everyone is just drooling to get ahold of, will open up new gaming avenues to people who have difficulty grasping or manipulating the large, clunky, two-handed controllers of the competition.
Take Travis Taft for instance, a gaming fanatic in Southern California who is also a quadriplegic. During a body surfing accident, he sustained a spinal cord injury that affected both arms and legs, and he has faced a grueling regimen of rehabilitation. Although he still has some use of his arms, the typical two-handed controllers are difficult for Taft to game with. He hopes that the Revolution controller, with its one handed operation, will make it possible for him to use is stronger right hand to reenter the gaming world. He’s taken his idea of Revo rehab for gamers recovering from these types of injuries to the national level, drawing comments from Ninty itself, and several advocacy groups.
Overall health, in the opinion of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, is “closely connected to resuming activities they love”, making the Revo controller a thing of joy for enthusiasts who are out to show that they still got game, in spite of their disabilities.
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1 opinion for Revolution as Rehab for Spinal Cord Injuries
Karine
Feb 7, 2006 at 12:19 am
That’s awesome. Kudos to Nintendo for thinking outside the box.
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