A novelty presented at Gamescom 2022: Alexa Game Control allows you to play with Amazon’s voice commands, but only a microphone is enough.
Amazon announced a new feature for Alexa, which will allow you to talk directly to video games. Called Alexa Game Control, the feature will allow you to use your voice to provide voice commands to games. Perhaps most importantly, gamers won’t need an Alexa device to make it work – just any microphone connected to Xbox consoles or PCs.
Amazon tries with Alexa –
The first game announced as compatible with the feature is Dead Island 2, a title that has been resurrected after spending eleven years in a “development hell” from which it seemed there was no more exit. And instead there will be an exit, fixed at February 3, 2023. As reported The Verge, the feature will only be available in English, but Amazon hopes to extend control to other languages. The company also wants to form partnerships with PlayStation and Nintendo to bring the feature to their consoles.
The long history of voice commands –
Voice commands are something you try to integrate into video games since the 1980s, with one of the first examples, the original The Legend of Zelda, which allowed you to destroy Pols Voice enemies by speaking into the microphone of the NES controller. Nintendo has continued to attempt to integrate voice commands into its products, with mixed results: many titles in the DS console family have tried to do so, even though gamers often felt embarrassed to do so in public. The difficulty in controlling the games with the voice has also led to a lot of frustration on the part of those who, on the other hand, would have simply wanted to use their hands. Despite these missteps, Alexa Voice Control could be the key to better accessibility: Xbox has led the way on this topic by encouraging developers to add options such as an on-screen sign language interpreter in Forza Horizon 5, as well as with Adaptive. Controller for users with limited hand mobility. If successful, Amazon’s initiative could mark another step forward in this regard.
Written by Georgina Young for GLHF
August 24, 2022 (change August 24, 2022 | 17:41)
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