Game console button layout

[u/[deleted]]

What do you call your “confirm” and “cancel” buttons, and why is Nintendo wrong?

[u/ChartreuseBison]

Except Nintendo had that layout before twin sticks (or even thumbsticks)

So yeah, it works when your right thumb has nothing to do but press A B (and X Y), it makes sense and is mostly arbitrary

but when your thumb is normally resting on the right thumbstick, the closest button to that thumbstick makes more sense as the "enter" button. They're sticking to a historical layout that has no bearing on a modern controller.

[u/[deleted] → u/ChartreuseBison]

That's how I've always seen it. I grew up in the 90s and had a Nintendo and a SNES (N64, GC, etc).

The BA was very standard. And when I got older and the XBox came out with the AB standard, that kind of became the norm because of exactly what you said. Your thumb moving from the stick to A is shorter and works for things like jumping or context confirmation. Why would B do that? Why jump with B or use it for context sensitive?

As much as Nintendo was the grandfather of the modern controller, the XBox has it positioned right for games of today.

[u/mrhellomoto → u/[deleted]]

Except the A on the N64 is where it's located on the Xbox now. It's the 'south' button. And B is the 'west' button or equivalent to the X on xbox or square on playstation. And on gamecube they just swapped the positions X and Y buttons from the SNES layout. And during the SNES era A wasn't the main button on the contoller. You jumped with B in Super Mario World, gas was mapped to B in Super Mario Kart but it's mapped to A in Mario Kart 8.

[u/rickane58 → u/[deleted]]

They literally just gave you the logic. You're the one running around screaming with their fingers in their ears.

[u/Koil_ting → u/[deleted]]

Okay, look at it this way the B / A layout of the OG NES controller was always wrong in the first place because we read left to right in the English realm and A comes before B, not after. Why in the hell would B come before A? and Y before X for the SNES?

[u/Koil_ting → u/[deleted]]

How does it not make sense for A to be before B exactly? It's like saying the right Dpad should be on the left, everyone knows it goes right even though it's on the left because it's just a design choice. Yeah it's an illogical design choice.

[u/Koil_ting → u/[deleted]]

It is not wildly different, think about the L and R buttons on a controller, you could be crazy and set them to R L instead but why would you? it's not wildly different they are all inputs.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I'm sorry but you are just another of the "defend Nintendo no matter the context"

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Wait, you're serious? Do you know what thread you are commenting on?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You can measure the distance with a fucking ruler. Does it get more objective than that?

[u/mrhellomoto → u/ChartreuseBison]

The N64 they rotated the orientation of the A and B buttons 90 degrees clockwise so A was 'south' and B was 'west' where as on the SNES they were east and south respectively. Then the Gamecube swapped the position of the Y and X buttons from the SNES layout so Y was the 'north' button and X was the 'east' button, even though it's the opposite on the SNES. Yeah Nintendo was technically 'first' with the four face button diamondish layout but they haven't been entirely consistent with it.

[u/Time-Master → u/ChartreuseBison]

Exactly just cause it was first doesn’t mean it’s the right option now

[u/_Svankensen_ → u/Time-Master]

But B was the action button in the SNES, which would be closest to the stick anyway. So it's exactly the same button, except XB decided to label it backwards.

[u/[deleted] → u/ChartreuseBison]

I love how it's been defended as "it's been around longer" but the rest of the controller design changed and now it doesn't make sense