The lab is the evolution of everything coming together, Hunter said. It's an embassy for gamers with disabilities, where we bring them in, we listen to their feedback, we see how they play. They're interested in helping us build better products. The space has a wall with photos and personal stories about gamers with disabilities, and a living room-style area with a sofa and large screen set up for gaming. Every detail is carefully thought out, from the desks that can be raised to accommodate wheelchairs to the braille signage and dimmable lighting. One wall features a row of computers and Xboxes with demos aimed at providing a sense of what gaming is like for players with disabilities. There's a desk with two switches attached to the bottom that let a player steer a car in a driving game and propel it forward with a foot pedal. Another station has a Quadstick , a mouth-operated joystick that works by blowing air into or sipping air from it. Simulation goggles emulate what it's like to look at a screen for someone with tunnel vision or partial blindness, and an eyes free station has a covered screen and an Xbox that reads aloud to players so they can navigate the system without a visual interface. Education is a very important aspect of this lab, said Evelyn Thomas, a program manager driving accessibility strategy and development for Xbox. It's a space where employees can come and understand what it's like for gamers who are marginalized by ability and how they play games. Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Microsoft's chief accessibility officer, said the lab and the new Xbox controller are integral parts of the company's efforts to make gaming more accessible. Gaming should be fun for everyone, whether you're a person with or without a disability, she said. “The Inclusive Tech Lab explores how technology can empower gamers with disabilities. Folks are getting together to think through how to make a game not just accessible, but totally awesome for someone with a disability. There is nothing but potential to make gaming more inclusive for everyone, Lay-Flurrie said. We absolutely take on that challenge and encourage more gamers to get involved, especially if you have a disability.

In 2017, Microsoft released a new feature for Xbox One called Copilot that links two controllers as if they were one, enabling people to play together without transferring the controller back and forth. That's helpful if a player has trouble operating all of the buttons on a single controller — so two players can team up on a game, for example, with one driving and the other firing. Copilot also allows players to create custom gaming setups that work for them. If a gamer is playing with one hand, a second controller can be linked with Copilot and operated with a head or foot.



The feature quickly became one of Xbox's most popular and is being used in ways its creators hadn't imagined, Johnson said. He mentioned a man who is blind and loved playing video games with his wife before he lost his sight, and rekindled that shared experience through Copilot.



With Copilot, he now has the opportunity to play with her again, Johnson said. It's opened up such a wide variety of capabilities.



The feature was instrumental in driving the evolution of the Xbox Adaptive Controller. As Copilot moved toward release, Microsoft realized that instead of creating an adaptive device that attached to an Xbox, like the hackathon-generated invention, it could instead develop a stand-alone unit that could connect with another controller via Copilot and accommodate more ports than would easily fit on the initial prototype device. Disabled gamers would get greater flexibility, and the controller would be a more elegant solution than an unwieldy add-on with wires hanging off in various directions.



But taking a product, particularly one designed for a specific market, from concept to completion isn't a straightforward proposition. As plans for the controller moved forward, Microsoft was also launching Xbox One X, the world's most powerful console, leaving deadline-focused Xbox employees with little bandwidth for other work.



And like any other area of the company, Xbox was expected to operate within financial constraints. An adaptive controller wouldn't necessarily generate a significant return on investment. But it was important to Microsoft's goal of making gaming more accessible to people with disabilities, and it spoke directly to the company's mission, implemented under CEO Satya Nadella, to enable every person and organization on the planet to achieve more.



Trying to develop a business case for an accessible product can be very, very challenging, because the scale of the products don't generally make a positive business case for the investment that has to go in, said Leo Del Castillo, who was the general manager for Xbox hardware when the controller was being developed.



You have to look at your return on investment in a way that is not just financial.



Castillo and a core group of dedicated employees helped push the project forward. Securing the needed approvals wasn't always easy, and it meant convincing the right people that an accessible device was worth the outsized investment. Hunter was among the project's dogged champions.



I had a passion for it and I didn't give up, she said. I kept saying, 'This product is too important. It's too important to Microsoft, it's too important to Satya's vision. If we really want to be intentional and we really want to walk the walk versus just talk the talk, this is the product that will do it.'