Peter Byrne, a cerebral palsy sufferer who also loves gaming, placed an order for a PlayStation 4 recently.
After the game was unpacked and Peter got to playing it, he realised that the controller's new setup meant that the game was pausing constantly. The middle touchpad, which is extremely sensitive at the best of times, kept hitting off Peter's left hand.
Still wanting to play despite his disability, Peter contacted PlayStation support to see if there was a solution. As he tells it, "Alex Nawabi from PlayStation messaged me and told me he was taking my matter personally and not on behalf of PlayStation. I explained to him my problem with a controller as well as my condition of cerebral palsy. I even had to give him a visual of what my left hand looked like gripping the controller. After a series of back and forth emails. Mr. Nawabi told me he was ordering some parts to come up with a solution for me."
After a number of back-and-forth e-mails between them, Peter was then shipped a specially-modified controller that allowed him to play, complete with a letter from Sony. In it, the letter described the pretty arduous task of rebuilding the controller to suit Peter's disability and a few technical specifications on the controller itself.
The letter finished by saying that "it killed me to hear how something you used to thoroughly enjoy was being ruined by our new controller design. Although I can't help everyone who has this problem, at least I could help you. I wish I could give you more."
For his part, Peter was chuffed that they took the time and effort to respond. "I honestly got choked up reading the letter as I did not expect anything like this to happen. Mr. Nawabi really cared about my situation and did this on his own time to make my experience better. I honestly can't thank him enough for everything he did for me."
Via Facebook