 When it comes to human bodies, there's no such thing as normal. So how do you design something like a game controller that's meant to offer the highest performance possible to as many people as possible? Do you just kind of take the average? Well, actually, yeah, that happens pretty often. But if you do that, you're naturally going to end up with a design that a lot of people really like. I'm particularly fond of this one, but that others simply cannot use at all. Thankfully, Microsoft has given us another option. The Xbox Adaptive Controller is not specifically designed for anyone, so that it can be used by everyone. The Thermaltake A500 aluminum mid-tower case features a minimalistic design, brushed aluminum panels for a clean uninterrupted look, hinged tempered glass windows on both sides, and compatibility for radiators of up to 420 millimeters at the front. Get it today at the link in the video description. Okay, so here I am. I've got my Adaptive Controller, and I'm connected to my Xbox One. It's got wireless capabilities, but it also comes with a 9-foot USB cable that can plug into this USB Type-C port that is also used for charging. So the big D-pad here is for navigation, and then I also have the menu, view, and Xbox buttons up here as usual. But then, like, other than that, there's not really a lot going on here. I mean, I've got these two big black buttons here that are labeled A and B, which actually have, like, pretty nice tactile feedback and click reasonably consistently, no matter where you press them, but, like... What am I expected to play with just two buttons and a D-pad? Tetris? Blades of Steel? This is like a NES layout. Okay, here we go. Okay, cool. So, this is sort of usable. I've got my accelerator, I've got my brake, I've got... Ooh, shoot. But there's some issues, like press Y to rewind. I don't have that. I can't press handbrake or, like... Yeah, look behind me or... Or really much of anything. So then odds are you'll want a few more buttons than this. Luckily, Microsoft has given us a few options, the easiest of which is called Copilot. This actually lets you use your adaptive controller and a conventional Xbox controller together as one player. So, for example, if you have more mobility on one side than the other, then you can use a mixed grip or you can even have a friend operate one controller while you operate the other one. Okay, so here we go then. I have the joystick, so I'll steer. Yeah, and then I'm gonna do gas and braking. So then you'd be able to rewind if I was like, yo, I wanna see that again. Oh, that's pretty cool. We're going in hot, we're going in... No, no, I got this, I got this, I got you, fam. That's a truck. Yeah, whatever, screw these guys. Oh! So that's actually pretty cool. But the real power of the adaptive controller comes here. Each of these 3.5mm ports back here corresponds to a button that you would find on a conventional Xbox controller. And there are actually two extra ones that are confusingly labeled as X1 and X2. So you end up with the X, the X1, the X2, and the X...box. Uh... Let me tell you, no one needs that many Xs. But, I don't know, then again, this was designed by the same people what brung you Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Anyway, here's how it works. If I wanna be able to press Y, I just plug in another switch. Like, for example, this one. The adaptive controller works seamlessly with most input devices that have this 3.5mm connection type. And that's really important because there is such a wide range of ability within the gaming community, and the perfect setup for you might not be the perfect setup for the next person. So where's my Y? There it is. Cool. So, let's take a look then through a handful of the different switch types that you could use to build your unique setup. So this one right here is kinda your basic buddy button in Gator Green. So we've also got though, this pillow button. This one's cool. So it's actually cushioned to make it comfortable to press with your head or with your cheek. You can actually hear it actuate there. We've also got this guy right here. This is called a wobble switch, and you can activate it a couple of different ways. So you can swipe in any of four directions or press it down. And this one right here is an ultralight switch, is actually designed to be worn. And you can see here it requires very little force to actuate. So if you had it on the back of your finger or something, and you pushed against something, you would activate it quite easily. Then there's the little candy corn proximity sensor, which can be activated without even actually touching it, just by getting very, very close. Finally, this guy right here is a foot pedal that's actually typically marketed towards transcribers. But, see, I mentioned this before, it does work with our adaptive controller because it uses exactly the same connector. Okay, so I've got all my different options here. I guess I'm gonna start playing some Mortal Kombat XL. Okay, so if I don't have any accessories at all, all I pretty much have is punch, other more different punch, forward, back, jump, and crouch, which is clearly, well, I don't know, I'm doing all right. But it's not gonna get me too far. I'm just sticking with the uppercut. Boom! Okay, so this is enough to beat an easy computer player, especially with remapping these two buttons to the two things you want to do the most often, but I can't even block, so it's obviously not ideal. Now let's kick it up a notch, starting with the foot pedal. So I want this on what, Y? Okay, I've got this plugged in, but now where do I even put it? Okay, let's go with here. Man, this is crazy, like I'm all of a sudden realizing just how many buttons there are on an Xbox controller. Like even if I only give myself four buttons here, the adaptive controller is a hundred bucks, the foot pedal is 25, and the buddy button is another $65. So we're at just shy of $200, and we still haven't even, A, mounted all of this stuff, or B, attached enough buttons to issue even half of the total number of commands. Fortunately though, we don't have to add one button at a time, so the adaptive controller also has USB ports on both the left and the right-hand side. So I could attach something like this, which is basically like an Xbox compatible Wii Nunchuk controller, or get this, you can also use a device that you already have lying around, like this joystick, which could provide both directional movement and, check this out, a whole whack ton of buttons. Alright, so we've kind of got all the ingredients now, but this is where things get a little bit more complicated than what I would consider to be ideal. So take the one-hand joystick for instance. Here we go. It's got some shoulder buttons, and when you click the joystick, you can actually switch layers so that the shoulders have secondary functions. Not bad for 20 bucks, but how do you remap it? Well, instead of the joystick appearing as its own object in the accessories app, you actually have to program it through the adaptive controller. So doing this requires knowing that when you plug the joystick in, the adaptive controller assigns certain buttons to it, so these are X1 and X2. So changing these buttons then affects the USB device, but also any switches that you plug into the X1 and X2 ports over here, due to that same limitation that we discussed earlier. Then, stay with me here guys, if you plug the joystick into the other side, it actually doesn't get mapped to X1 and X2. It gets mapped to view and menu now. So it didn't take us too long to figure this out through a combination of checking the manual and trial and error, since there's only a couple of buttons on this thing, but then, hold on a minute, what about my other random joystick which has a bunch of buttons? Oof. Alright, so the first thing to note is that the adaptive controller only supports eight buttons per USB device. So step one is to identify which of the more than eight buttons are even being used. Then, I guess what you'll have to do is just hop into a game that you're really familiar with, grab a pen and paper, and then start to map out what the eight buttons do when your joystick is plugged into the left, and then repeat the whole process again when it's plugged into the right. Also, if you don't like which eight buttons the adaptive controller decided to utilize, like for example, what if I only wanted to use these buttons down here instead of these ones up here? Well, as far as I can tell, you just don't get a choice. One other word of caution too, if you're using a high-powered device like one of these mouth mice, you're gonna need to make sure that you plug your adaptive controller into the wall so it has enough juice both for itself and any connected accessories. Now, Microsoft wants $20 for this adapter in their store, but they also helpfully clearly labeled the back so you could just use any 5-volt 2-amp adapter. So in conclusion then, there is definitely some room to improve the user friendliness of the adaptive controller, but honestly, the main reason that we made this video wasn't to do an in-depth review of it necessarily, but rather to bring a little bit more attention to how, for all their flaws, amazing it was that Microsoft spent both the engineering time and the money to make this thing. In spite of the $100 price being higher than a standard controller, I can pretty much guarantee you that Microsoft is never going to break even on this thing, let alone turn a profit. So the only conclusion, other than that, okay, the cynical among you might assume they did it just for the good PR, but... I'm not sure if I buy that. I think it's fair to say that if nothing else, someone or someones over there worked really hard on this thing so that they could open up new possibilities for many, many Xbox and PC gamers, because the whole thing also works with Windows, who haven't always had many good options. No, it's not perfect. And yes, a fully kitted out setup can end up with the same kind of ludicrous price tag that many other pieces of accessibility equipment suffer from, but this is still a giant leap in the right direction, and it's something that we hope to see more of. What can you change with headphones other than the sound quality? How about the materials? Using a piece of CNC carved walnut wood, the Massdrop Meze 99 Noir closed headphones are definitely going to make you stand out. They utilize a 40mm driver with a warm, rich, bassy sound, and included with the headphones are detachable cables, a 1 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 inch plug adapter, a woven nylon carrying case, and a one-year warranty. So check it out at the link below and join the drop today. So thanks for watching, guys. If you disliked this video, you can hit that button, but if you liked it, hit like, get subscribed, or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description. Also down there is our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one, and our community forum, which you should totally join.