Nintendo Partners With ESA For Accessible Games Initiative

The Entertainment Software Association of America (ESA) has announced a new initiative to promote accessibility in gaming.

The initiative is called the Accessible Games Initiative, with one of its first aims being to create a “common language” to describe accessibility features in gaming. This includes common tags for features like subtitles for the hearing impaired, or narrated menus for the visually impaired. A full list of current tags can be found here. The hope is that this will allow gamers with disabilities to make more informed purchasing decisions for games they are interested in.

Nintendo is among the many publishers who have joined in on this initiative, as announced on the the company’s official website. Nintendo will be doing its part by including the relevant tags on the eshop and My Nintendo Store.

Nintendo of America will be introducing these tags in the future. As publishers opt into adding support for the Accessible Games Initiative tags, players will be able to find them in the My Nintendo Store.

Players can find the descriptions for each tag on the Accessible Games Initiative website. Participating companies will all be using the same tags and tag definitions. In short, you no longer need to worry about guessing what a tag means for individual games across participating gaming storefronts, and you can better know what to expect before you buy a game.

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