Sony Announces Pre-Orders, Ship Date For New PlayStation 5 Access Controller

In a blog post published on Thursday, the PlayStation team announced its all-new Access Controller for PlayStation 5 will begin shipping on December 6. Pre-orders will begin later this month, on July 21. The peripheral is priced at $89.99 in the United States.

The post was written by Isabelle Tomatis, Sony’s vice president of brand, hardware, and peripherals.

“On your PS5 console, there are many settings for the Access controller that you can configure to meet your needs. You can map buttons to create up to 30 control profiles, adjust stick settings, toggle commands on/off, or disable buttons altogether to stop accidental pressing, “ Tomatis wrote of the Access Controller. “You can even pair up to two Access controllers and one DualSense wireless controller together and use them collaboratively. Check out the video below for a sneak peek at the countless ways you can craft your own gaming experience through the Access controller.”

As I reported in May for Global Accessibility Awareness Day, the advent of Sony’s new adaptive controller is important because not only does it make PlayStation 5 more inclusive of and accessible to people with disabilities, it also serves as a competitive counterpart to Microsoft’s vaunted Xbox Adaptive Controller. All told, both devices serve as positive signs that the gaming industry is working towards making video games more diverse and inclusive of a wider swath of potential gamers.

The Access Controller for PS5, previously known as “Project Leonardo” internally at Sony, was first announced in January at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.