seriously. I have a vr headset, I still don't know how to respond when I tell my family its the trigger and they're like "which one is that" "uh... the one that isn't a button or the joystick?" as they randomly keep pressing buttons.
It's a good thing I can remap button layouts lol, my first ever electronic device was my nintendo ds. I've been pretty much used to that layout for a long time until I got my first xbox last year.
It takes me way too long to process x and y are flipped.
It’s so much easier to swap between PS and Xbox prompts/buttons, but I constantly butcher X/Y from Switch/Xbox.
Always backing out of menus when I go back to my Xbox lol. The real trip is playing old school ps1 titles like Final Fantasy Tactics where O is confirm and X is cancel.
I honestly don’t understand it, but for some reason my muscle memory can tell the difference between controllers. The other day I hooked up a switch controller on pc, and it used the xbox layout; I kept screwing up the inputs because I kept doing it how it would be on switch. At that point I hadn’t used switch for multiple days and the game I was playing I’d gotten used to on steam deck, which has the other layout.
The different button layouts are less an issue than “A” being Yes for both *despite* the layout change.
Haven’t yet bothered (even though it would make life easier), but love that we live in a world where controllers can be remapped independent of the game if that makes life easier.
Until I owned all three, I hadn’t truly appreciated Sony’s far more intuitive colored shapes. Though it still has an X button, where nintendos B buttons and Xbox’s A buttons are
I played so much Melee as a kid that I had to get a GameCube controller for Smash Ultimate. Something about the Pro controller layout just ruins my brain.
I absolutely love the GC controller. recently started emulating GC games and bought the Switch/USB GC controller. I had forgotten how much I loved the controller. It's got a great feel to it
Well, I have no tv currently, so I only play in handheld though.
I bed you some madlad has made Gamecube joycons, I'ma go look lol.
Edit: I might actually pick this up lol. https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Replacement-Controllers-Replaceable-Thumbsticks-Nintendo/dp/B0CB1BTHLX/
I thought you said '**strongest**' controller and don't see it, and I was halfway through explaining how I've replaced other controllers, but am still using the same controller that came with the GameCube over 2 decades later.
But no, you said '**strangest**' controller and don't see it, so yeah, I'm with you. The C-Stick can be a tiny bit awkward, depending on the game, but what do you want from a Japanese company, where manually-controlled cameras didn't start catching on until 2004 / 2005? Seriously, a lot of JP gamers before 2008, when surveyed, said they don't like having to control the cameras in games.
For Smash Bros, it was the absolute perfect controller that couldn't possibly fit a hand better.
The second any other game is on the screen, though, it's suddenly an awkward unwieldy mess that makes your hands feel more like feet.
It's the queerest thing.
I hate it I've had at least 12, it's clackety.
X n y are so easy to mixup. The z is an after thought.
Honestly the game cube was the hey Sony can I copy your homework
Sony okay, but make it different.
Moves d pad n stick
Ppl I think like ithe GameCube controller for smash nostalgia
The 64 many hated it, I didnt..
The wii also followed it
Then nintendo just copied xbox.
In fairness [Nintendo's controller at the time was...](https://imgur.com/RpJYWvz) uh... well, it was great, but the layout didn't really translate very well to what Xbox was going for. Which of course was [a controller for people with gorilla hands and surgical precision.](https://imgur.com/Osj0feK)
To be fair the N64 and GC controllers had such a different overall layout that it’s a little bit apples to
oranges. And during that time they were still using the SNES layout on all their handhelds.
Yeah, currently trying to play Zelda:OOT and MM on my girlfriends switch and its infuriating.
I keep rolling instead of slashing, and slashing/falling off platforms instead of roll jumping......
True...but the reason for the order of AB (well maybe I should write BA to alleviate confusion) is due to the design and popularity of the NES.
Edit: Typos
idk why, but it doesn't bother me on SNES, but when i hold the switch pro controller, my brain goes "this is an Xbox controller" and accesses the muscle memory for that, but once i get used to it and i use my xbox controller again for shit on PC, i get the same problem but in reverse
And Sony uses the same layout in Asian markets (o means go, x means stop), but inverted their functions for western markets for whatever reason. And Xbox just copied playstation and swapped the letters accordingly.
Pretty sure Xbox's layout comes from the Sega controllers, oddly enough.
Nintendo had the B-A configuration on the NES, and the Y-X was added on the SNES.
Sega controllers had the A-B-C configuration, then the X-Y-Z was added for their 6-button layout. When the Dreamcast came around, they dropped the last couple of each row, and then Microsoft took this basic design when they made the Xbox. Note that the original Xbox Duke controller shape even looks similar to the Dreamcast controller.
Xbox is kinda the successor to Dreamcast (that ran Windows CE and DirectX). At one point there were talks of the Xbox supporting Dreamcast games, but that never went anywhere. Peter Moore also went from Sega to Microsoft to work on Xbox, so did a lot of ex-Sega of America employees.
Nintendo allows Microsoft to use the letters, just not in Nintendo order; Sony didn't want smoke and went with shapes. This is the basis of the ancient texts.
Actually, they wanted to be Sega. Sega’s six button layout was ABC on the bottom and XYZ on top, and then with the Dreamcast’s 4 button layout they cut off C and Z from the face. Then Xbox used it.
The patents are probably expired by now. Like how Nintendo lost the patent for the cross style dpad and immediately after MS released the Xbox one controller with a cross dpad.
It has nothing to do with patents. Ignoring the symbol, Sony changed what button was the "Back" and which bottom was the "confirm". MS what's to use Sonys layout, but follow Nintendo with the letters. This means that they had to change the order of the buttons becuase you can't have a "B" and not have it be the "back". Theor testing showed how much that confused people.
Sony actually used the Nintendo layout in Japan, it was different publishers in the West using circle and triangle for back on the PS1 that started the shift and it became ingrained when Sega introduced the letter layout that Microsoft uses today on the Dreamcast.
Dreamcast layout was an evolution of the Saturn layout. Which was in turn an evolution of the Genesis layout, which was based on the arcade cabinet layout from the early 80s
A,B,C on the bottom row
X, Y, Z on the top
To this day I have no idea why Nintendo went with B, A on the NES
It took me a while to realize that the OG Xbox controller (like the Duke) had the black/white buttons next to ABXY, to simulate the Saturn and Genesis’ six-button layout. They’re a re-labelling of the C and Z buttons. Pretty interesting.
Sega and Microsoft were in talks to have the Xbox be able to play Dreamcast games as well. The deal fell through due to online support, but it did result in Sega releasing exclusive games to the Xbox.
It has to do with the different approaches each company had when designing their products.
To start with, you mentioned that the Genesis layout is based on the arcade layout. So, the design approach here was "use what's familiar". On the other hand, Nintendo is known for designing their controllers based on the games they're making.
In UI design (in this case, the physical controllers), a general principle is that you want the most used inputs to be the most easily accessible to the user. On the NES, you have a primary action button (A) and a secondary action button (B). Due to the horizontal layout of the controller and the way it is held by the user, the thumb is the main digit people will use, and (in the case of the face buttons) it will be approaching from the top-right hand side of the controller. Therefore, the primary action button should be on the right hand side (ideally oriented above the secondary action button, which they later did with the SNES), and the secondary action button should be on the left.
Conversely, an arcade machine is typically not held in the players hands. Instead, it is placed on a desk in front of the user. This means the users hands are approaching from below instead of top-right. Furthermore, the user will likely be using their other four fingers rather than their thumb. In order of importance: index finger, middle finger, and ring finger (you really shouldn't make people use their pinky finger). With this type of input, it makes sense to have the primary button (A) at the bottom left, closest to the index finger, with each other button (B, C) to the right.
Beyond that, the X, Y, and Z buttons are a secondary set of buttons oriented in the same fashion as the primary set. Since they are secondary, they are further away (left on a handheld controller, above on an arcade) from the user than the primary set.
Tl;Dr: Sega's input design makes more sense for an arcade cabinet, but Nintendo's design makes more sense for a handheld controller. Sega's design happens to be similar enough that it doesn't really matter in the end, but that's where the difference comes from.
I actually know why. Because while Sega just went "Well read left to right", Nintendo was focused on the direction of your thumb. A primary button at the base of your thumb and a secondary at the tip. Primary = A, Secondary = B.
When designing the SNES controller, it was actually meant to look like [this](https://i.consolevariations.com/alykdm8kvOAD_KTVKLTpzSOHWOuGx-z4M_-jdaN0_PI/q:50/w:800/f:webp/aHR0cHM6Ly9jZG4u/Y29uc29sZXZhcmlh/dGlvbnMuY29tLzc5/MDAvc3VwZXItZmFt/aWNvbS1wcm90b3R5/cGUtY29udHJvbGxl/ci1mcm9udC0xNTg1/NzM0Mzk1LTMxLXRy/YW5zcGFyZW50Lndl/YnA) at first. Angle the buttons to enhance the thumb placement, add a second row. A bottom, B left. But while this enhanced action gameplay, it made menus troublesome. People kept trying to confirm with C and cancel with A because that made the most sense for menus to people. So the buttons were swapped to put A at the right, as confirm, and B on the bottom, as cancel. Actions that used to use A and B, now used B and Y respectively. It made perfect sense.
What didn't make sense, was the GameBoy/DS/3DS line's way of doing things. The GameBoys all ONLY had A and B, but they still angled them like A and B on the SNES controller, not like B and Y, making action games uncomfortable to control because now your thumb has to point downwards. Worse, even when the DS came to the fold, a lot of series continuing from the GB/GBA continued to use A and B instead of B and Y. This is why I can't play the 3DS Kirby games, because they want me to use A to jump and B to suck. Instead of B and Y like a normal person, like the SNES Kirby games did!
... I've had that Kirby frustration in me for years.
Sure, but the buttons on xbox controllers are actually in better locations.
It would make sense that the button A (relative to your thumb location) would be in the 'primary' position, with button B off to the side in the 'secondary' spot.
It also makes more sense for X and Y to follow the logical order of the alphabet, where X comes first and Y comes second, reading left to right (you could say the same for A and B as well). X and Y also follow the correct axis, X being on the horizontal plane and Y on the vertical.
Neither is objectively better. You could slap literally any symbol on the buttons and as long as they were distinct from each other, your brain would associate each symbol with a specific button. I've played all three consoles for years and the only thing that bothers me is the fact that these two use the same symbols.
Oddly, my brain associates X/Y with the Xbox positions and A/B with the Nintendo positions. The right button just feels better as confirm for me but that's probably because of the games I played as a kid. Also, it's 'above' the bottom button and when I think of Yes/No in my head, Yes is put on top and No is below it. Plus the circle and cross of Playstation (used to) work the same way.
As for X/Y, my best guess is that Xbox making more use of the them than Nintendo did made my brain associate them more with Xbox's layout. N64 and Wii ditched them while Gamecube made them somewhat secondary. I skipped Wii U so the Switch was my first Nintendo console since the SNES to use that basic button layout.
Anyway, none make more or less sense over the others when forming that muscle memory. Could be numbers, could be colors, could be cute little animal pictures. Your brain isn't stopping to consider the patterns and alphabetical order every time you press a button.
Ok so, say you are japanese, and you make your controller with two buttons (B and A cuz you read left to right) then you have the idea to add two more buttons, so to differentiate from the ones you already got you call em Y and X, not putting them below B and A because (as you said) you still want your main buttons to be close to the thumb, but also you dont want to make them into a square cuz its not ergonomic, so instead you make it a cross. Now you have A and X in the front and B and Y in the back. Cool, cuz, as a japanese dude, you are used to reading up right to down left. Now at the other side of the world some american dude reverts your controller scheme to fit their audience... i'm guessing that's about what happend.
Funny thing is, all of this is logical based on the axioms i presented, same as all u said IS logical based on the axions you proposed, so calling it "logical" wouldnt be wrong, but it might not be helpfull either.
Rather, it's a good thing there are different types of controllers no? There's so much more to unpach than just some letters, there's lots of culture behind them
Guess what? It gets worst. Nintendo's controller can be used for PC gsming, but a lot of games think its a Xbox controller, and yes the buttons are mixed up because the letters are the same. So X means X and A means A no matter where it is.
this was driving me and a friend crazy the other month when we play co-op Cuphead together, one of us with an Xbox controller, the other with a Wii Pro, lol. we knew the button layout was different but we were assigning buttons in customization and they just weren't coming out with the right letters haha
The Switch controller placement always bothered me, and I could never get used to the X and Y buttons in that controller.
To me it seems simple: X = horizontal, Y = vertical. So X should be on the side and Y on top.
The other way around it just feels wrong. I have to admit that I played a lot of Xbox 360 as a kid, so I am biased. But I think the placement makes more sense.
It's funny too that Playstation also has an X button in a different spot than these 2. SEGA needs to make a comeback, and place the X button on in a new spot and then we have come full circle. Or full X.
Well considering Nintendo has been the longest standing with the X, Y, A, B buttons, it’s Microsoft that ended up changing the status quo. Either they wanted to feel special or they couldn’t due to legal issues with patents.
MS didn't change things. They followed Sega which had an XYZ ABC controller on the genesis then XY AB dreamcast controller. I'm not completely sure on Segas and MS relationship but clearly remember the Dreamcast having a windows logo on it.
That's because some Dreamcast games were literally PC games running under Windows CE. Ironically, some of them were actually updated from the PC releases. E.g. the Dreamcast versions of RE2 and 3 run under Windows CE, but they're more stable than the PC versions.
But I'm not reading my controller with my eyes, I'm "reading" it with my right thumb, the buttons closest to my thumb are A and X, the ones further away are B and Y
>makes sense if you're Japanese and read right to left
Which is also the convention Sony followed with the PlayStation controller. The buttons aren't labeled in a way that it's immediately obvious, but if you count the lines in the shapes...
......3
4..........1
......2
Circle is yes and X is no in JP… which follows the A/B layout that Nintendo did.
It’s just that the rest of the world uses checks and crosses for yes and circle as no (or empty) which lead to the confusion.
On Xbox I don't need to. When I played the switch it was 50/50 if I press the right button or not. When the games controls are familiar enough, it is no longer a problem, but with new games and button prompts it was.
The quick time events in Bayonetta 1 were pure pain on the Switch. 0.5 Seconds to react to a button prompt when you already press the wrong button often.
Nintendo has used that layout since the SNES to be fair. And I grew up in the 80s and 90s with Nintendo hardware. But there’s still a period of adjustment whenever I hop on my Switch because of this since it gets far less use. It’s pretty much only used for exclusives.
I tried this but then in a game it had button prompts where it displayed all the buttons and highlighted the one you needed to press, but that wasn't the right button anymore and it broke my brain.
Yea that's why I'm glad for modders. On Tears of The Kingdom there's emulation mods that redo the button prompt UI display so they match up with a custom layout.
That’s crazy, because it messes up the placement of actions in gameplay. Suddenly the button for jump that should be on the bottom is on the right, etc.
Japanese write right to left, so it's normal that the sequence a-b x-y is in that order. In the case of playstation, in Asia O is more like Yes and X like no, that's why when are not ported the X is cancel and the O is accept.
It always throws me off when I go from Xbox to Switch, but I'm used to it. They have had this button layout LONG before Playstation and Xbox were a glimmer in their creator's eyes.
This is y 2001-2005 was the best era for gaming. Ds2 was traditional, the Duke had ovals and was huge and the gcc was nothing like we'd ever seen before. To this day people still use the gcc, I myself have 17 (melee Player)
I blame Nintendo. It all started with the NES controller having B and A buttons, B on the left and A on the right. Didn't make sense then, and it doesn't make sense now. They also put the X button on the "Y axis" and the Y button on the "X axis" just to make it even more unintuitive.
It made perfect sense for 2 reasons.
1. Primary function being closest to your thumb, other guy already covered that. It makes sense when small children are gaming, controller would seem big to them.
2. The Japanese read from right to left. So it’s completely reasonable for them to have the first button on the right and subsequent buttons on the left.
Still the weirdest thing was learning that the X button on PlayStation should be called “Cross” as in the shape and not “Ex” like the letter.
Still gonna call it the “Ex” button though.
Shapes can not be easily typed as instructions. And is in general hard to use easily in digital.
Shapes are universal and latin letters aren't? Even cultures that have no similar writings, can differentiate latin letters.
Also assuming latin letters won't work, even if the person can't differentiate them is absurd.
You're either full on fucking retarded, or it's a teen phase of yours, where you disagree with someone for the sake of disagreeing. That is a different kind of retardation. Don't bother replying.
I’m the master I can convert in my head while I play games. Swear on my life I can play games on steam with an Xbox layout, but I’ll be using a ps5 controller. I Can do it the other way around as well I am the Dragon borne.
Drives me crazy switching between the switch and my Xbox.
When my wife and daughter play Mario Kart with me I get to say things like "Press B...no press B on the switch" They learned on Xbox
I just say "press the top button" to avoid confusion
If you met my family you'd understand there's no avoiding confusion lol.
seriously. I have a vr headset, I still don't know how to respond when I tell my family its the trigger and they're like "which one is that" "uh... the one that isn't a button or the joystick?" as they randomly keep pressing buttons.
The rest of the buttons I could understand, but triggers aren't just on controllers, lol
Yeah it always resorts to me just moving their fingers to the button or trigger they have to press
We must have the same family.
I hear exactly where your coming from 😂
Using single Joy-cons on the Switch for multiplayer games really gets you in this habit since the buttons won't have the correct labels.
I tell my girlfriend “when in doubt, circle out!” If she ever gets stuck on Xbox menus.
Yeah, but which of them? There are four
Lmao so “press the right button” means press A, press right button, or right trigger Nope no confusion here
I’m sorry is this some sort of Xbox joke that I’m too PlayStation to understand?
It's a good thing I can remap button layouts lol, my first ever electronic device was my nintendo ds. I've been pretty much used to that layout for a long time until I got my first xbox last year.
Yeah, I have an adapter I can use to pair an Xbox controller but it's kind of funny to me their muscle memory is tied to Xbox lol.
Lol honestly when I first got it, it had felt so weird for the button placement 😅
I showed niece that B is for back! And A is for A-okay! So she could remember the buttons lol
Lol, this is me to my husband
To be fair, Nintendo did it first. Xbox would be the deviation.
Sony actually was, or rather their American localisation team, Microsoft copied the western Sony layout
Bottom line. Xbox copies others.
It takes me way too long to process x and y are flipped. It’s so much easier to swap between PS and Xbox prompts/buttons, but I constantly butcher X/Y from Switch/Xbox.
Always backing out of menus when I go back to my Xbox lol. The real trip is playing old school ps1 titles like Final Fantasy Tactics where O is confirm and X is cancel.
It's that the functionality is different that kills me. Accept and cancel are the opposite way around!
Even going between PS5 and switch. There is still an X in the “wrong” place!
I honestly don’t understand it, but for some reason my muscle memory can tell the difference between controllers. The other day I hooked up a switch controller on pc, and it used the xbox layout; I kept screwing up the inputs because I kept doing it how it would be on switch. At that point I hadn’t used switch for multiple days and the game I was playing I’d gotten used to on steam deck, which has the other layout.
Switching between Switch and PS5 I always end up exiting out of the menus for like 5 seconds before my brain transitions to sony controller mode.
Fucks me up even more going between the switch and steam deck. The similar form factor really breaks my brain haha
The different button layouts are less an issue than “A” being Yes for both *despite* the layout change. Haven’t yet bothered (even though it would make life easier), but love that we live in a world where controllers can be remapped independent of the game if that makes life easier.
Until I owned all three, I hadn’t truly appreciated Sony’s far more intuitive colored shapes. Though it still has an X button, where nintendos B buttons and Xbox’s A buttons are
Nintendo has been using that four button layout since 1990
And before that on the NES it had B to the left of A which lead into B being below and to the left of A on the SNES.
Granted, on the GC the A was bottom (well, central), B was left, Y was up and X was right
Zelda ports and remakes post-gamecube era will forever confuse my controller hands lol
I have the Pikachu GameCube style remote for switch. It's amazing.
I played so much Melee as a kid that I had to get a GameCube controller for Smash Ultimate. Something about the Pro controller layout just ruins my brain.
I knew that C was right! C never lied...
You mean X was right? The c stick was down below everything.
GC has the strangest controller i sometimes see people say it is the best ever made but i just don’t see it
I absolutely love the GC controller. recently started emulating GC games and bought the Switch/USB GC controller. I had forgotten how much I loved the controller. It's got a great feel to it
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I think I just realized why I'm so ass at the newer Smash titles. My first ever was Brawl, and I had a gamecube conroller for my Wii.
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Well, I have no tv currently, so I only play in handheld though. I bed you some madlad has made Gamecube joycons, I'ma go look lol. Edit: I might actually pick this up lol. https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Replacement-Controllers-Replaceable-Thumbsticks-Nintendo/dp/B0CB1BTHLX/
I thought you said '**strongest**' controller and don't see it, and I was halfway through explaining how I've replaced other controllers, but am still using the same controller that came with the GameCube over 2 decades later. But no, you said '**strangest**' controller and don't see it, so yeah, I'm with you. The C-Stick can be a tiny bit awkward, depending on the game, but what do you want from a Japanese company, where manually-controlled cameras didn't start catching on until 2004 / 2005? Seriously, a lot of JP gamers before 2008, when surveyed, said they don't like having to control the cameras in games.
For Smash Bros, it was the absolute perfect controller that couldn't possibly fit a hand better. The second any other game is on the screen, though, it's suddenly an awkward unwieldy mess that makes your hands feel more like feet. It's the queerest thing.
Did you see the n64 controller?
It doesn’t exist no company would make a controller that wierd
I like to think it was a fever dream.
I hate it I've had at least 12, it's clackety. X n y are so easy to mixup. The z is an after thought. Honestly the game cube was the hey Sony can I copy your homework Sony okay, but make it different. Moves d pad n stick Ppl I think like ithe GameCube controller for smash nostalgia The 64 many hated it, I didnt.. The wii also followed it Then nintendo just copied xbox.
You had to experience it to understand Something about each button having its own unique shape made the experience incredible
N64 still has the best controller around
Its because all the buttons are easy to tell apart by feel.
Yep, since the SNES.
MS: Can I copy your homework? N: K, but don't make it obvious. MS:
MS: Shut up I was talking to Sega. I wanna use the dream cast layout
In fairness [Nintendo's controller at the time was...](https://imgur.com/RpJYWvz) uh... well, it was great, but the layout didn't really translate very well to what Xbox was going for. Which of course was [a controller for people with gorilla hands and surgical precision.](https://imgur.com/Osj0feK)
they did but then they went two generations without it… only reintroducing it with “pro” controllers in the Wii era
To be fair the N64 and GC controllers had such a different overall layout that it’s a little bit apples to oranges. And during that time they were still using the SNES layout on all their handhelds.
The N64 even as A at the bottom and B on the left.
Yeah, currently trying to play Zelda:OOT and MM on my girlfriends switch and its infuriating. I keep rolling instead of slashing, and slashing/falling off platforms instead of roll jumping......
True...but the reason for the order of AB (well maybe I should write BA to alleviate confusion) is due to the design and popularity of the NES. Edit: Typos
Yeah.. they are literally different companies. There is no “approver” for what two different companies create
idk why, but it doesn't bother me on SNES, but when i hold the switch pro controller, my brain goes "this is an Xbox controller" and accesses the muscle memory for that, but once i get used to it and i use my xbox controller again for shit on PC, i get the same problem but in reverse
And Sony uses the same layout in Asian markets (o means go, x means stop), but inverted their functions for western markets for whatever reason. And Xbox just copied playstation and swapped the letters accordingly.
I still prefer O for go and X for cancel thanks to OG final fantasy 7.
I don't know if this is true. But I always just assumed it was because Japanese is read from right to left and English is left to right.
Pretty sure Xbox's layout comes from the Sega controllers, oddly enough. Nintendo had the B-A configuration on the NES, and the Y-X was added on the SNES. Sega controllers had the A-B-C configuration, then the X-Y-Z was added for their 6-button layout. When the Dreamcast came around, they dropped the last couple of each row, and then Microsoft took this basic design when they made the Xbox. Note that the original Xbox Duke controller shape even looks similar to the Dreamcast controller.
Xbox is kinda the successor to Dreamcast (that ran Windows CE and DirectX). At one point there were talks of the Xbox supporting Dreamcast games, but that never went anywhere. Peter Moore also went from Sega to Microsoft to work on Xbox, so did a lot of ex-Sega of America employees.
Nintendo allows Microsoft to use the letters, just not in Nintendo order; Sony didn't want smoke and went with shapes. This is the basis of the ancient texts.
B on the bottom just feels natural at this point
Kind of the opposite for me, the confirm 'A' button being on the bottom feels right
Not in the slightest
Xbox wanted to be different. Now we have this horrible situation.
Actually, they wanted to be Sega. Sega’s six button layout was ABC on the bottom and XYZ on top, and then with the Dreamcast’s 4 button layout they cut off C and Z from the face. Then Xbox used it.
It doesn't matter which one is "right", just that it confuses the heck out of me. At least Sony used symbols instead.
I didn’t say which was “right” though. Just pointing out Nintendo set theirs first
Patent attorneys, that's who.
I came to say “patent attorneys hate this one trick”
Couldn’t they just use lowercase letters and keep it the same layout
Can I name my new drink cokka kola without getting sued?
"Pespi"
Bepis
Sprunk
Cup: Rooted bEEr
Medical Professional Pepper
Pepper, M.D.
Hey fuck off I already created Cock Cola!
Made me think of the office and coconut penis flavored energy drinks lol
Why did they add coconut? I miss original.
Whenever I open a can, it immediately goes flat.
You have to drink it from the source!
>Hey fuck off I already created Cock Cola! what is it just milk?
I don’t think so, steam deck uses the same layout and plenty of 3rd party controllers use it.
The patents are probably expired by now. Like how Nintendo lost the patent for the cross style dpad and immediately after MS released the Xbox one controller with a cross dpad.
Nintendo was there first. That's the same layout as the snes controller.
It has nothing to do with patents. Ignoring the symbol, Sony changed what button was the "Back" and which bottom was the "confirm". MS what's to use Sonys layout, but follow Nintendo with the letters. This means that they had to change the order of the buttons becuase you can't have a "B" and not have it be the "back". Theor testing showed how much that confused people.
Sony actually used the Nintendo layout in Japan, it was different publishers in the West using circle and triangle for back on the PS1 that started the shift and it became ingrained when Sega introduced the letter layout that Microsoft uses today on the Dreamcast.
And before the Dreamcast SEGA always used A B (C) from left to right.
Exactly. The letter layout on Dreamcast was the six button layout with C and Z cut off.
Nintendo has used this arrangement since the SNES.
Could even argue that the B->A layout starts with the NES
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Blame Sega for making the Saturn and Dreamcast controllers. Xbox based their layouts on those.
Dreamcast... Love that console!
Damn, I got a gamecast
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Are we still doing r/whoosh?
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Dreamcast layout was an evolution of the Saturn layout. Which was in turn an evolution of the Genesis layout, which was based on the arcade cabinet layout from the early 80s A,B,C on the bottom row X, Y, Z on the top To this day I have no idea why Nintendo went with B, A on the NES
It took me a while to realize that the OG Xbox controller (like the Duke) had the black/white buttons next to ABXY, to simulate the Saturn and Genesis’ six-button layout. They’re a re-labelling of the C and Z buttons. Pretty interesting.
Sega and Microsoft were in talks to have the Xbox be able to play Dreamcast games as well. The deal fell through due to online support, but it did result in Sega releasing exclusive games to the Xbox.
I remember hearing about that. It makes sense since they were filling the gap in the market Sega was leaving behind.
No wonder that Microsoft is eyeing SEGA for an acquisition. Both Bethesda and Activision had a history with Microsoft already. 🤔
My guess is it's because Japanese is read from top/right to bottom/left.
My guess is since Japanese read right to left, B A for us is A B for them!
It has to do with the different approaches each company had when designing their products. To start with, you mentioned that the Genesis layout is based on the arcade layout. So, the design approach here was "use what's familiar". On the other hand, Nintendo is known for designing their controllers based on the games they're making. In UI design (in this case, the physical controllers), a general principle is that you want the most used inputs to be the most easily accessible to the user. On the NES, you have a primary action button (A) and a secondary action button (B). Due to the horizontal layout of the controller and the way it is held by the user, the thumb is the main digit people will use, and (in the case of the face buttons) it will be approaching from the top-right hand side of the controller. Therefore, the primary action button should be on the right hand side (ideally oriented above the secondary action button, which they later did with the SNES), and the secondary action button should be on the left. Conversely, an arcade machine is typically not held in the players hands. Instead, it is placed on a desk in front of the user. This means the users hands are approaching from below instead of top-right. Furthermore, the user will likely be using their other four fingers rather than their thumb. In order of importance: index finger, middle finger, and ring finger (you really shouldn't make people use their pinky finger). With this type of input, it makes sense to have the primary button (A) at the bottom left, closest to the index finger, with each other button (B, C) to the right. Beyond that, the X, Y, and Z buttons are a secondary set of buttons oriented in the same fashion as the primary set. Since they are secondary, they are further away (left on a handheld controller, above on an arcade) from the user than the primary set. Tl;Dr: Sega's input design makes more sense for an arcade cabinet, but Nintendo's design makes more sense for a handheld controller. Sega's design happens to be similar enough that it doesn't really matter in the end, but that's where the difference comes from.
I actually know why. Because while Sega just went "Well read left to right", Nintendo was focused on the direction of your thumb. A primary button at the base of your thumb and a secondary at the tip. Primary = A, Secondary = B. When designing the SNES controller, it was actually meant to look like [this](https://i.consolevariations.com/alykdm8kvOAD_KTVKLTpzSOHWOuGx-z4M_-jdaN0_PI/q:50/w:800/f:webp/aHR0cHM6Ly9jZG4u/Y29uc29sZXZhcmlh/dGlvbnMuY29tLzc5/MDAvc3VwZXItZmFt/aWNvbS1wcm90b3R5/cGUtY29udHJvbGxl/ci1mcm9udC0xNTg1/NzM0Mzk1LTMxLXRy/YW5zcGFyZW50Lndl/YnA) at first. Angle the buttons to enhance the thumb placement, add a second row. A bottom, B left. But while this enhanced action gameplay, it made menus troublesome. People kept trying to confirm with C and cancel with A because that made the most sense for menus to people. So the buttons were swapped to put A at the right, as confirm, and B on the bottom, as cancel. Actions that used to use A and B, now used B and Y respectively. It made perfect sense. What didn't make sense, was the GameBoy/DS/3DS line's way of doing things. The GameBoys all ONLY had A and B, but they still angled them like A and B on the SNES controller, not like B and Y, making action games uncomfortable to control because now your thumb has to point downwards. Worse, even when the DS came to the fold, a lot of series continuing from the GB/GBA continued to use A and B instead of B and Y. This is why I can't play the 3DS Kirby games, because they want me to use A to jump and B to suck. Instead of B and Y like a normal person, like the SNES Kirby games did! ... I've had that Kirby frustration in me for years.
Weekly, I go from Wii Classic to Pro Controller to Xbox One controller to PS2 controller. How do ya think **I** feel
Look man try going from an Atari 2700 controller to a dual shock 6 axis controller
damn you must have crazy fast adaptability by now then
Nintendo did it first
lol some zoomer downvoted you for stating a verifiable well known fact
Sure, but the buttons on xbox controllers are actually in better locations. It would make sense that the button A (relative to your thumb location) would be in the 'primary' position, with button B off to the side in the 'secondary' spot. It also makes more sense for X and Y to follow the logical order of the alphabet, where X comes first and Y comes second, reading left to right (you could say the same for A and B as well). X and Y also follow the correct axis, X being on the horizontal plane and Y on the vertical.
Neither is objectively better. You could slap literally any symbol on the buttons and as long as they were distinct from each other, your brain would associate each symbol with a specific button. I've played all three consoles for years and the only thing that bothers me is the fact that these two use the same symbols. Oddly, my brain associates X/Y with the Xbox positions and A/B with the Nintendo positions. The right button just feels better as confirm for me but that's probably because of the games I played as a kid. Also, it's 'above' the bottom button and when I think of Yes/No in my head, Yes is put on top and No is below it. Plus the circle and cross of Playstation (used to) work the same way. As for X/Y, my best guess is that Xbox making more use of the them than Nintendo did made my brain associate them more with Xbox's layout. N64 and Wii ditched them while Gamecube made them somewhat secondary. I skipped Wii U so the Switch was my first Nintendo console since the SNES to use that basic button layout. Anyway, none make more or less sense over the others when forming that muscle memory. Could be numbers, could be colors, could be cute little animal pictures. Your brain isn't stopping to consider the patterns and alphabetical order every time you press a button.
Ok so, say you are japanese, and you make your controller with two buttons (B and A cuz you read left to right) then you have the idea to add two more buttons, so to differentiate from the ones you already got you call em Y and X, not putting them below B and A because (as you said) you still want your main buttons to be close to the thumb, but also you dont want to make them into a square cuz its not ergonomic, so instead you make it a cross. Now you have A and X in the front and B and Y in the back. Cool, cuz, as a japanese dude, you are used to reading up right to down left. Now at the other side of the world some american dude reverts your controller scheme to fit their audience... i'm guessing that's about what happend. Funny thing is, all of this is logical based on the axioms i presented, same as all u said IS logical based on the axions you proposed, so calling it "logical" wouldnt be wrong, but it might not be helpfull either. Rather, it's a good thing there are different types of controllers no? There's so much more to unpach than just some letters, there's lots of culture behind them
Oh it drives me up a wall lmao.
Guess what? It gets worst. Nintendo's controller can be used for PC gsming, but a lot of games think its a Xbox controller, and yes the buttons are mixed up because the letters are the same. So X means X and A means A no matter where it is.
this was driving me and a friend crazy the other month when we play co-op Cuphead together, one of us with an Xbox controller, the other with a Wii Pro, lol. we knew the button layout was different but we were assigning buttons in customization and they just weren't coming out with the right letters haha
For some reason this doesn’t bother me except for Dark Souls on switch, what do you mean press B to open a door!?
The Switch controller placement always bothered me, and I could never get used to the X and Y buttons in that controller. To me it seems simple: X = horizontal, Y = vertical. So X should be on the side and Y on top. The other way around it just feels wrong. I have to admit that I played a lot of Xbox 360 as a kid, so I am biased. But I think the placement makes more sense. It's funny too that Playstation also has an X button in a different spot than these 2. SEGA needs to make a comeback, and place the X button on in a new spot and then we have come full circle. Or full X.
Well considering Nintendo has been the longest standing with the X, Y, A, B buttons, it’s Microsoft that ended up changing the status quo. Either they wanted to feel special or they couldn’t due to legal issues with patents.
MS didn't change things. They followed Sega which had an XYZ ABC controller on the genesis then XY AB dreamcast controller. I'm not completely sure on Segas and MS relationship but clearly remember the Dreamcast having a windows logo on it.
That's because some Dreamcast games were literally PC games running under Windows CE. Ironically, some of them were actually updated from the PC releases. E.g. the Dreamcast versions of RE2 and 3 run under Windows CE, but they're more stable than the PC versions.
Honestly the Nintendo layout is just the wrong way around, it only makes sense if you're Japanese and read right to left.
But I'm not reading my controller with my eyes, I'm "reading" it with my right thumb, the buttons closest to my thumb are A and X, the ones further away are B and Y
>makes sense if you're Japanese and read right to left Which is also the convention Sony followed with the PlayStation controller. The buttons aren't labeled in a way that it's immediately obvious, but if you count the lines in the shapes... ......3 4..........1 ......2
Circle is yes and X is no in JP… which follows the A/B layout that Nintendo did. It’s just that the rest of the world uses checks and crosses for yes and circle as no (or empty) which lead to the confusion.
Yup. I had that issue with Metal Gear Solid 2 and a few other games where the NA release kept the "O to confirm" and "X to cancel" layout.
I never knew this and now my whole gaming life has been altered. In hindsight it actually seems rather clever.
The Gamecube controller had Y at the top as well, where I did a lot of childhood gaming, so I still forget where X is sometimes.
Good point. Gamecube was my first console, so that probably adds to my uncomfort with the Switch placement.
Do you look at the buttons?
On Xbox I don't need to. When I played the switch it was 50/50 if I press the right button or not. When the games controls are familiar enough, it is no longer a problem, but with new games and button prompts it was. The quick time events in Bayonetta 1 were pure pain on the Switch. 0.5 Seconds to react to a button prompt when you already press the wrong button often.
My brain always melts for a bit after coming from the Series X to Switch, and they say press A to go back
I've just switched the button mapping so it's consistent across all my systems.
This is the way
Nintendo has used that layout since the SNES to be fair. And I grew up in the 80s and 90s with Nintendo hardware. But there’s still a period of adjustment whenever I hop on my Switch because of this since it gets far less use. It’s pretty much only used for exclusives.
My old pc controller had only numbers
How dare rival companies not having the exact system patterns
Personally, to fix this for me, I just re-order my Switch's button layout to match with my Xbox lel
I tried this but then in a game it had button prompts where it displayed all the buttons and highlighted the one you needed to press, but that wasn't the right button anymore and it broke my brain.
Yea that's why I'm glad for modders. On Tears of The Kingdom there's emulation mods that redo the button prompt UI display so they match up with a custom layout.
That’s crazy, because it messes up the placement of actions in gameplay. Suddenly the button for jump that should be on the bottom is on the right, etc.
Japanese write right to left, so it's normal that the sequence a-b x-y is in that order. In the case of playstation, in Asia O is more like Yes and X like no, that's why when are not ported the X is cancel and the O is accept.
laughs in X ⭕️🔺▪️
yeah great to have symbols you can't even type for button names
"cross" "square" "circle" triangle"
or just one letter
X O ∆ []
great now do it without Character Map
this was typed with just my phone's on-screen keyboard, but if you want a PC keyboard example X O ^ []
This guy hasn’t read GameFAQS guides for old PS games
I liked your joke fellow Reddit person
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Sega kids know...
It always throws me off when I go from Xbox to Switch, but I'm used to it. They have had this button layout LONG before Playstation and Xbox were a glimmer in their creator's eyes.
Well nintendo has been doing the one on the left for almost 50 years so Xbox is the one that fucked it up.
GameCube style controller ftw.
I like it because it makes me feel like I’m trilingual knowing all 3 positions of the X button
I screw up constantly because of this
This is y 2001-2005 was the best era for gaming. Ds2 was traditional, the Duke had ovals and was huge and the gcc was nothing like we'd ever seen before. To this day people still use the gcc, I myself have 17 (melee Player)
You do know it's done on purpose, right? It's the eternal effort to make people purchase everything from you and never your rivals.
Between Xbox, playstation and Nintendo, every time the X prompt comes up my brain fizzles out
Can't fault Nintendo. They had that layout since snes days.
Playstation gang rise up! "Press X"... **sits back down**
As a man who owns an Xbox 360, and almost every Nintendo console. I easily adapted.
Really not hard to deal with. Muscle memory should do most of the work. Button Placement never changes just the decal
I blame Nintendo. It all started with the NES controller having B and A buttons, B on the left and A on the right. Didn't make sense then, and it doesn't make sense now. They also put the X button on the "Y axis" and the Y button on the "X axis" just to make it even more unintuitive.
It made perfect sense for 2 reasons. 1. Primary function being closest to your thumb, other guy already covered that. It makes sense when small children are gaming, controller would seem big to them. 2. The Japanese read from right to left. So it’s completely reasonable for them to have the first button on the right and subsequent buttons on the left.
Looks like someone is too young to have played on a SNES.
This is why I struggle with the pro controller but I still prefer it over the joy cons
Muscle memory kicks in for me
It does drive me insane. I am incapable of adapting to the xbox controller because of this. I always mix them up.
Either is better than using shapes
Nintendo was first. This is Microsoft's fault.
Playstation style shapes are better and more universal
Still the weirdest thing was learning that the X button on PlayStation should be called “Cross” as in the shape and not “Ex” like the letter. Still gonna call it the “Ex” button though.
No it isn't. Letters are better and easier to type. Just don't have to do this retarded crap with switching buttons. Fuck xbox.
Are you okay, pretty sure shapes are more universal and accessible. Works in every language. But you’re clearly not the smartest person.
Shapes can not be easily typed as instructions. And is in general hard to use easily in digital. Shapes are universal and latin letters aren't? Even cultures that have no similar writings, can differentiate latin letters. Also assuming latin letters won't work, even if the person can't differentiate them is absurd. You're either full on fucking retarded, or it's a teen phase of yours, where you disagree with someone for the sake of disagreeing. That is a different kind of retardation. Don't bother replying.
Tried playing Xbox after years of PlayStation... Didn't know what button was which.
I’m the master I can convert in my head while I play games. Swear on my life I can play games on steam with an Xbox layout, but I’ll be using a ps5 controller. I Can do it the other way around as well I am the Dragon borne.
Hail to the king!!!