First off, let me say that, hearing all of this is absolutely fantastic and really, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for it.

I do have to admit that, having a blind fiancé and no real desire to bring over sighted assistance and not able to a majority of the time, there are a few things that need to be included before I even consider this, well, and mainstream games in general.

Let me explain. While I understand that blind people play mainstream games, I’m less inclinded to do so. I have a job, and am finishing up my degree, and, basicly, I don’t want to make gaming work. By this, I mean memorizing menus, writing down menus, asking for help as to which team or game mode or difficulty setting or whatever is I’m just not interested. While I commend those that are, and fully support playing mainstream games, I just want to sit down and play a game – if I want commentators off, I want to be able to turn it off, not put up with it because I don’t know how to navigate the menus. That goes for the team selection. If I want to run a season with my Dallas Cowboys, I don’t want to have to start games with the wrong teams and figure out how I got there and hope it works the same. Basicly, I want to enjoy it like everyone else.

This, to be honest, is why I don’t have a console – I just can’t justify spending $300 on something that I can’t use to it’s fullest potential. While I commend Microsoft and Soni for including speech in their consoles, I just don’t think, as of right now, it’s worth the money, simply because for another $50 on top of the console, I have to put work into something for fun. I absolutely love hearing, though, what’s going on with the title being talked about, I just believe that, for me, it’s still got a ways to go before I would consider purchasing it.

This comes from someone who, as a blind guy all my life, has owned a console up to the PS2, and spent a fair amount of time with an xbox 360 (my brother’s). I also had the time back then I wanted to spend.

If, or hopefully when, EA decides to give madden the accessibility to my standards of what I will be willing to shell out that kind of cash for, I’ll buy it in a heartbeat – I’ve loved football games, and hope to continue to do so in the future.

I know there are going to be those that are saying “I play lots of games on xbox,” which I agree. I’ve seen lots. I just want more than fighters and games I can actually play, win, and complete all the way without having to work. I use work to mean not work at playing the game, but work at playing it successfully – ill sink time into a game, just not into preparing for it; I’ve got other things I enjoy/have to do than to memorize menues, fiddle around with cameras for hours to figure out where I’ve got to go because, well, the game is half accessible. etcetera. IT’s like Grand theaft auto. I’d love to play that, too, but, while running around killing things and driving cars off bridges is great fun, it’s not $50 fun. I want to do the missions and all that, too, and as of now, I can’t. The game, to me, isn’t accessible; it’s not even playable. I can only do a fraction of what’s there.