The tale of a modified PlayStation 4 controller means more than a heartwarming gesture

When Alex Nawabi adapted a controller for someone with cerebral palsy, he reopened a whole avenue of experience

At the beginning of March, 21-year-old PlayStation owner Peter Byrne sent an email to Sony. Byrne has cerebral palsy and he found that his left hand was hitting the large touchpad in the centre of the PlayStation 4 control pad, constantly pausing his game. He wanted to know if there was anything the console manufacturer could do. He did not expect what happened next.

Alex Nawabi, a retail marketer at the company, got in touch. He told Byrne that he'd taken on the problem as a personal project. After 10 hours of work he'd managed to reverse engineer a PS4 controller, unwire the touchpad and rewire the button to the back of the controller. "Let me know if the button placement is uncomfortable," he wrote. "If there are any changes you'd like made, please email me."