the tech giant Sony He held his traditional conference on Wednesday night prior to the start of the Consumer Electronic Show 2023known by its acronym CES, in which he made various announcements focused on new adaptive controls for the console PlayStation 5 and its mobility unit with the prototype car AFEEL.

In principle, Sony seeks to continue promoting the fifth generation of its console to include more and more players in its technological ecosystem. That’s why it’s building a new inclusive joystick called “Leonardo Project”, a kit that promises to make games easier to play for people with motor disabilities.

In initial images, which were released during the Las Vegas conference, “Project Leonardo” is a set of circular gamepads lined with buttons and directional input methods, all of which are customizable.

In this regard, Sony assured that the system will work directly with the PS5, allowing players create your ideal gamepad,exchanging hardware and creating different profiles according to your user experience.

“Our team tested more than a dozen designs with accessibility experts, seeking approaches that would help address key challenges to effective controller use. We finally settled on a ‘split controller’ design that allows almost free left/right joystick repositioning, can be used without holding the joystick, and features very flexible switching of buttons and stick caps,” said Sony designer So Morimoto.

It is expected that “Project Leonardo” can be used alone or paired with the console’s DualSense joysticks: up to two Leonardos and one DualSense can be combined to form a great gamepad. This gives players flexibility and also allows other people to Help control the games.

As for the rest of its features, the hardware includes four 3.5mm AUX ports to accommodate a variety of existing accessibility accessories and switches.

With the Leonardo Project, Sony follows in the footsteps of its rival Microsoft,who spearheaded efforts in the field of accessibility when released the Xbox Adaptive Controller in 2018.

During the conference there were also previews of the plans they have with the “Gran Turismo” video game, beginning with a video of the homonymous film adapted by director Neill Blomkamp.

The South African, who was present, assured that one of the challenges of the project that will hit theaters on August 11 was to maintain the sensory experience of the game for fans and provide the necessary narrative to the story for those who are not familiar with it. with video games.

In addition, the president of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Jim Ryan, announced that the video game will also be available to be used through the virtual reality helmet. PlayStation VR2, whose sale is scheduled for February 22, 2023.

AFEELA cars made their presentation at CES 2023

On the other hand, the technology and entertainment company Sony showed for the first time the prototype of the new car in which it works in collaboration with Honda, AFEELA.

“We believe that the future of mobility is not just about transportation. Sony is committed to developing a software-based mobility platform with our joint venture Honda“, said the CEO of Sony, Kenchiro Yoshida, minutes before presenting the prototype of the car at the conference.

Among the data they revealed about the vehicle, they announced that the car will have a screen on the front that will allow information to be shared with the outside, it will have 45 cameras and sensors inside and outside that will seek to guarantee the safety of users to prevent accidents.

According to the general director of Sony Honda Mobility, Yasuhide Mizuno, the project proposes a new mobility experience and was created from three axes: autonomy, which guarantees user safety, argumentation, which proposes an entertainment space, and that of affinity that has to do with their contribution to society.

Sony representatives announced that AFEELA will have a pre-sale period and will begin shipping in 2025, and that the first shipment to be delivered to North America will arrive in spring 2026.