Xbox Celebrates the Gaming and Disability Community for Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Global Accessibility Awareness Day is an excellent opportunity to raise awareness about digital inclusion and accessibility and celebrate over 400 million disabled gamers creating and playing across the world. This is my pleasure to highlight some of the efforts Team Xbox has made in collaboration with the disability community to spread the power and joy of gaming to even more people. It is only by working together and focusing on accessibility all year that Xbox can be a place for everyone to have fun with the joys of gaming. For us, this is:

  • Support inclusive communities and build connections. Gaming can bring people together, and offer opportunities to share new experiences. Our goal is to help you find and build a network, connect with other gamers and offer support for accessibility and influence over the game’s future.
  • Allow accessible design, development. Participating in accessibility discussions and working with people with disabilities from the beginning of projects can result in more people enjoying them. It can sometimes be hard to know where or which resources to look for. By sharing our knowledge, we want it to be easy for others to understand and include gaming accessibility.
  • Accessibility investment: Continuous investments. Accessibility features enable players with disabilities to create, play and communicate in their own ways. Our commitment to innovation and partnership with the community is to provide accessibility features and innovative products and games.

We believe that nothing should stand between the players and the games they enjoy. This is why we work hard to provide accessibility solutions that eliminate obstacles and allow them to interact with other people. Xbox wants to celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day by sharing some of the ways that players can connect with creators and community members, as well as new resources and accessibility features for creators.

Celebrate GAAD with us and celebrate the people and characters who have disabilities.


Foster inclusive Communities and Connections.


Minecraft Education EditionAccessibility

BuildAbility’s new launch this month is in Minecraft Education EditionThe new world of accessibility was developed in collaboration with Peel District School Board (Ontario, Canada). Through the interaction with a variety of characters, students learn about barriers faced by persons with disabilities and how they can be overcome. Minecraft promotes inclusion and problem solving, rooted in empathy. You can find all the details here. Minecraft Education Edition world.

Several blocky characters stand outside a school entrance. The "Minecraft: Education Edition BuildAbility" logo is shown in bold letters.
BuildAbility: Minecraft Education Edition was created in partnership with the Peel District Schools Board, Ontario, Canada.

American Sign Language (ASL), Xbox Twitch Channel

Twitch channel /XboxASL has an American Sign Language Xbox channel! The Xbox Plays team broadcasts live every day on Twitch, where they play the latest titles in the Xbox universe. The Xbox Plays team launched an ASL Xbox channel with Sorenson in partnership. This is a communication company that has the most extensive interpreter base worldwide. Visit the new channel here and learn more about Xbox’s partnership with Sorenson here. 

Xbox Accessibility Insider League XAIL + Windows Insider Program Partnership

The Xbox Accessibility Insider League (XAIL), which has grown to more than 163K members since its launch last May, is a streamlined way anyone who self-identifies as a person with disability or ally can provide accessibility feedback directly to Xbox engineering or game development teams. To share accessibility improvements in Windows 11 preview builds, the Xbox team has partnered with Windows Insider Program. This is a great opportunity for Windows 11 XAIL members to take a look and give feedback. Start today with XAIL. You can also watch the Xbox Insider hub on Xbox and PC for announcements.


Facilitate Accessible Design and Development


Xbox Accessibility Guidelines for Xbox (XAGs), 3.0 Update, including new guidelines regarding mental health

Based off community and developer feedback, the latest Xbox Accessibility Guidelines (XAGs) update published this month includes a brand new mental health guideline, in addition to guidance on reducing motion sickness, on-screen text legibility, contrast and input guidelines. The release includes updated examples and information on how to implement them.

A new gaming accessibility resource hub

In partnership the Gaming and Disability community and subject matter experts at Unity, Unreal & Coherent, the Gaming Accessibility Resource Hub recently launched providing an extensive resource of gaming accessibility guidance in one spot. Covering training, talks, testing tools, and popular game engines, this resource was created to help game creators in all stages of their game’s accessibility journey. In partnership with the community, content will be regularly updated.

Gaming Developer Accessibility Resource Hub landing page shown in dark mode with accessibility guidance, documentation, courses and trainings, conferences, testing tools and developer tools 
Developers have a new place called the Gaming Developer Accessibility Resource Center. This hub offers a single location for them to begin their accessibility journey.

Gaming Accessibility Fundamentals Learning Program

The Gaming Accessibility Fundamentals Learning Path was launched in November 2021. It is a 5-module free course. This covers a variety of topics including accessibility basics, collaboration with the disabled community, software technologies, and best practices for designing gaming hardware. Participants receive a badge when they are done to show their knowledge. Get your badge and start sharing on social media to celebrate GAAD2022.


Player Accessibility: A Continuous Investment


It’s easier to locate games that are accessible

Xbox recently announced Accessibility Feature Tags in Xbox Store. It makes it easy for users to search for games that include one or more accessibility tags. The tag was created with input from the disabled community and user research. With over 400 titles already tagged, and more than 100 having five or more tags per title, we’re excited to announce that players will now be able to search for and filter their games by any one of the tags. We are grateful for the community’s feedback and look forward to incorporating more suggestions into our future features.

Filter capability highlighted in Xbox Store, with adjustable difficulty and On-Demand Tutorials tag under GamePlay category selected,  and both tags applied. 
Players will find it much easier to locate games with one of 20 accessibility features, such as Custom Volume Controls or No Quick Events. 

Accessibility features for consoles and platforms

You can customize your console and platform accessibility features to make playing easier. These features include Console Silent UI, which can mut additional sound, the ability to remap share buttons to more than 22 commands and the ability to add and increase tooltips to remapping on Xbox Adaptive Controller. This is particularly useful if a controller has the shift buttons remapped.

Forza Horizon 5 – Addition of ASL/BSL and other accessibility features

Playground Games partnered with the disability community to add American Sign Language (ASL), British Sign Language, (BSL), support. Forza Horizon 5’s in-game cinematics. Incorporating additional accessibility features into the game, the team took advantage of the Xbox Accessibility Guidelines. Forza Horizon 5 You can disable moving background, game speed adjustments, high contrast mode and color blindness modes, as well screen reader narration. Accessibility features are available in the following: Forza Horizon 5.


Play. Connect. Impact.


Xbox celebrates Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Xbox will support all who play, and continue to make gaming more accessible for everyone. Here’s a simple example of how Xbox is supporting our community.

Play Forza Horizon 5 Microsoft Rewards Points can be donated and earned

Earn Microsoft Rewards points during May by unlocking achievements in Forza Horizon 5 To claim your rewards, use the Microsoft Rewards app for Xbox. You can also donate the points to SpecialEffect which supports individuals with disabilities using innovative technology. Players Outreach empowers children in hospitals through games.

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