A Sony employee built a custom game controller for a player with cerebral palsy
Peter Byrne e-mailed Sony's support team about a problem he was having with the Playstation 4's controller because of his condition, a movement disorder that can involve poor coordination, tremors and stiff muscles. Byrne's left hand would constantly hit the controller's trackpad, which caused the games he was playing to pause.
Sony's support directed him to Alex Nawabi, a member of the Retail Marketing Operations team, who created a modified controller. The custom controller included a new, small button on its back which mimicked the functionality of the PS4's trackpad, while the troublesome trackpad itself was disabled.
Nawabi also sent along with the following note.
The "white lie" mentioned in Nawabi's note is that he initially told Byrne that he'd been unsuccessful in creating the controller, but would instead send a goodie bag full of other Sony-related products.
Since Byrne's Facebook post went live Nawabi has received tremendous support and has released the following statement on Facebook.
Thank you all for the kind words. I'm eternally grateful.
Seeing how happy he is, and how stoked his mom got, has me in tears.
Please keep in mind that the Research and Development team at PlayStation is filled with some absolutely astounding individuals who wake up every day and try to come up with a solution for everyone. What I did only works for a single individual and it should not undermine their work in any way. I cannot stress this enough. Without them, we wouldn't even be close to what we are today. If you're not aware, they've recently added more accessibility settings that let you remap buttons to help with a large portion of needs. Their team members are the true MVPs.
I've always cared, I always will care.