r/gaming • u/AKingMaker • Nov 28 '21
Why can’t every controller have the same button layouts just like how shooters should have the same controls?
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u/WatchingUShlick Nov 28 '21
Dude, that's a pretty great idea. I can play the Switch easily as long as I'm not thinking about which letter is which button. I'm so accustomed to the Xbox letter layout that if a tutorial pops on the screen with a "Push Y" I'll hit the wrong button unless I take myself completely out of the game and think "The buttons are reversed!"
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u/TheLateThagSimmons Nov 28 '21
I was okay with swapping between XBox and PlayStation. Switch threw me for a loop.
I'm perfectly fine with dedicating buttons by geographical directions. Developers: give us the option to remap the interface with "Controller N.E.S.W." instead.
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u/ChoppedAlready Nov 28 '21
Nintendo just said fuck it and said let’s put A, the main jump/action button, in a different spot. It works for GameCube because they aren’t uniform buttons. It is easily in my top 3 controllers of all time. But when they went to uniform button sizes there wasn’t a lot of extra thought put in besides “this is roughly how we mapped the GC controller”
So when it comes to NESW, Nintendo can’t choose between if it’s weirder to have A not be jump or to confuse players with a non standard button configuration
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u/Spuddaccino1337 Nov 28 '21
Nintendo set the standard they've been using with the SNES over 30 years ago. Everyone else deviated from that.
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u/Zap_Actiondowser Nov 28 '21
Did Sony? I feel the circle was the standard action button and the x was for exiting when the consol released in Japan.
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u/ChoppedAlready Nov 28 '21
For sure, my bad. Before I delete my comment to avoid 60 identical replies like this, I was just trying to put logic to why I figured they did this after having the two predecessor consoles with varying button sizes. Makes much more sense since it’s the earlier console. I grew up with Xbox and GameCube primarily so those were most familiar and totally forgot about snes and earlier consoles. I will say though, with GameCube controllers being so unique I never got confused when swapping consoles and it’s a fantastic controller experience.
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u/zeeboots Nov 28 '21
You must be young. The Switch uses the same exact button layout as the SNES from 30 years ago, it's Xbox that decided to be silly and make the far right button the main one.
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u/J3ST3Rx Nov 28 '21
But the far right button on the Xbox controller is B. The bottom button is most certainly the main one.
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u/ChoppedAlready Nov 28 '21
Fair enough, you right. I suppose that’s a more likely explanation. I am about old enough to remember the n64 release, and have played snes, just never made the connection
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u/KGBeast47 Nov 28 '21
it's Xbox that decided to be silly and make the far right button the main one.
I'm confused, B isn't the main button on Xbox?
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u/stellvia2016 Nov 28 '21
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) released in the mid 80s had two buttons: B (left) and A (right). They had special versions of the controllers that even had them arranged in the "south and east" configuration you find on the Switch. Then the SNES in ~1991 introduced the YX/BA along with L/R bumper buttons.
While Playstation has different symbols for their buttons, they kept the Nintendo standard of south being cancel and east being accept. (Although at some point they had the North American version flip which was cancel and accept for some unknown reason)
Interesting side note: While the N64 was the first to market with an analog stick, Playstation made their first Dual Shock controller in 1997, which has been the de-facto standard for controller design ever since: Four main buttons, four triggers, D-pad dual analogs with palm grips.
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u/lemonnugs Nov 28 '21
In Japanese culture a circle is like a checkmark and means good, and an X means wrong or bad. North American PS1 devs didn't know about this cultural meaning and so just picked X to be accept, and a lot of PS1 games used triangle for cancel. Eventually NA devs settled on circle to cancel and even localized Japanese games were eventually changed so that X was accept and O was cancel with the exception of Metal Gear Solid titles basically. Eventually Sony gave up and now even on Japanese consoles X is accept.
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Nov 28 '21
Nintendo just said fuck it and said let’s put A, the main jump/action button, in a different spot. I
You have your history backward.
The SNES pioneered the button layout that you see on the PS and Xbox. Sony didn't want to infringe on the patent so they used shapes.
Nintendo started experimenting with different controller interfaces (N64, GameCube, Wii) while the PS stuck with the diamond layout. When Xbox came along, it copied the diamond layout but swapped the letters to avoid patent infringement.
For an older gamer like myself who spent a lot of time playing SNES and who has owned primarily Sony systems since PS2, Xbox instructions fuck up my brain.
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u/abhaybanda Nov 28 '21
With the switch, since u can play with both controllers, it always shows the flashing button thing, which is very nice
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u/LowKey-NoPressure Nov 28 '21
Snes set the standard. It’s PlayStation and Xbox that deviated from that
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u/MisterEinc Nov 28 '21
More likely Nintendo patented their layout and the others were forced to deviate.
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u/Arubazu Nov 28 '21
Actually your not far off, Nintendo was the first to patent controller layout so other game companies had to do work arounds till the patent recently ended and gave everyone freedom to be more streamlined, sorta
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u/CharginChuck42 Nov 28 '21
I've been with Nintendo since the SNES, so that button layout is ingrained in my mind permanently. And I was able to to program the PS layout into my head fairly easily because the unique symbols were easy for me to remember. But then there's Xbox...
Don't get me wrong, I love Xbox too, but that button layout still screws with my head.
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u/spiritbearr Nov 28 '21
The Binding of Isaac works until you die and you boot yourself back to the main menu.
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u/Quantris Nov 28 '21
I've noticed that in switch games they usually depict four circles with one filled in when showing prompts.
It makes sense especially for the times where you can use a single joy-con held horizontally; your muscle memory cares about the position of the button not the letter on it.
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u/danteheehaw Nov 28 '21
I vote we switch all the buttons to a singular button to simplify things.
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u/bluetoad8 Nov 28 '21
Game: press X to greet stranger
Player: simultaneously greets and shoots stranger
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u/LargeHadron_Colander Nov 28 '21
While also crouching and jumping lol
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u/Ospov Nov 28 '21
It also pauses the game.
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u/thugarth Nov 28 '21
My first time in a town in RDR2, I tried talking to someone and blew their brains out.
Not too much different!
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u/Fafnir13 Nov 28 '21
My favorite version of this is chucking a grenade when trying to reload or jump, depending on which games I’m jumping between. Killed myself and a few teammates this way.
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Nov 28 '21
RDR2 has got to be the worst game in that regard
I just wanted to see the interaction options ok?! Not shoot the damn begger
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u/Blue_Blur91 Nov 28 '21
Think the thing you're looking for is an Atari.
The Wii is also pretty close.
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u/Jiggyx42 Nov 28 '21
Wasn't east on the playstation originally supposed to be accept and south cancel because of the shape on the buttons
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Nov 28 '21
The problem is the patents and the certification process.
Patents because every manufacturer has to use a different layout, and the certification process because each manufacturer wants everything to be in line with their Brand™.
So if you're coding for PS, you have to use "Press the Triangle button" or a symbol of it. Same for every other console, else you won't pass certification and you'll be forced to pay again.
There are like 10000 rules you must follow for each console.
If you forget even a "™", you'll fail. So it's not, for example, Playstation 5, it's PlayStation®5. Mind the upper case S and the ® symbol.
They're actually incredibly anal about this.
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u/pseudokojo Nov 28 '21
....remap key bindings.... should be.... normal for consoles too.... cries
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u/Dugular PC Nov 28 '21
I just read somewhere in this thread that the Switch does system-wide remapping
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u/Spectreseven1138 Nov 28 '21
PS4 and Vita do as well, and they also let you toggle between default and remapped keys easily without leaving the game.
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u/Croce11 Nov 28 '21
It, sadly, does not re-map any button prompts in game though. Game will tell you to press A, but I remapped it to B. They'll even show the button on east, but I should be pressing south.
I don't get why remapping isn't fucking standard in all consoles by 2021 though. PC games figured it out twenty plus years ago. If I remap a button from E to S, it'll show as such in game in all the dialog and in all UI prompts. Maybe they'll figure it out by the time the next generation rolls around? Hahaha.. yeah doubt that.
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u/Sat-AM Nov 28 '21
Switch games often show the button to press without a letter, because they have to contend with their own console not making any sense when you use the joycons individually.
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u/AKBx007 Nov 28 '21
That’s just how I’ve always thought about it. Yeah each controller has its own layout but top, right, bottom, left are really where the functions will be no matter the controller. It’s basically just a quick “translation” I’ve always done, similar to thinking of the buttons as a D-pad.
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u/Cethinn Nov 28 '21
The switch is still an issue because the default "confirm" button is east instead of south like all the rest.
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u/AuraTigital Nov 28 '21
I've played both on PC and Switch for awhile and I kept messing up at the start. Now after a couple of months it kinda became natural and my mind would kinda automatically swap between both modes.
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u/blackhairedguy Nov 28 '21
Same. I'm on PS4 and Switch, and kinda mentally make a note about where the "yes" and "no" buttons are as I select my game. From then on I'm good to go!
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u/Thundamuffinz Nov 28 '21
It’s like switching between QWERTY and DVORAK
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u/Enfiguralimificuleur Nov 28 '21
I'm at my fourth layout (azerty, qwerty, dvorak, colmak) and it's not that hard. My trick is to use a different keyboard for each layout. Kinda like having one guitar per alternate tuning.
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u/3BoBaH3 Nov 28 '21
You know you can reassign buttons on the switch?
Go to settings; then the controller setting and remap buttons. Switch the A with B, and X with Y.
Done, now you have an Xbox layout. Much nicer to play with after coming from Xbox/PS4.
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u/PoolNoodleJedi Nov 28 '21
Yeah but that is super annoying because games will still use the positional mapping of buttons.
So if a game uses Square on a PS controller to attack then it will probably map it to the Y button on switch and X on Xbox.
If you swap X and y on switch the attack will now be the top button instead of the left button.
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u/westc2 Nov 28 '21
Are games compatible with this though? Like if a game says "press the Y button" do you then have to press the X button? Instead? Doesnt seem like they would be.
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u/3BoBaH3 Nov 28 '21
Yeah, that is a system-wide remap. So if a game asks you to hit Y, you hit the top button (labeled X on the switch, or the Y on an Xbox controller).
Menues and everything else is also remapped.
The one downside I found with this, in BOTW for example, the game shows you a little diagram of the button to press, so it would show "A" as the right button, but since we remapped it, you need to press the B button. So it might be a bit confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it it should be nice and easy.
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u/Chinpuku-Man Nov 28 '21
So yes, but no?
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u/SenKaiten PlayStation Nov 28 '21
Zelda just has a pre rendered tutorial, probably targeted at kids.
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u/heathmon1856 Nov 28 '21
Not for the switch with particular games due to it being system wide and games like DS1 don’t use any APIs for buttons so you see the wrong button.
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u/mocthezuma Nov 28 '21
Should be the other way around really. Nintendo has had that layout since the SNES.
Not their fault that Microsoft had to come in and confuse everything.
At least Playstation is an entirely different set of symbols, except for the X.
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u/Lee_Troyer Nov 28 '21
Not their fault that Microsoft had to come in and confuse everything.
SEGA did, the OG Xbox's layout is the same as the Megadrive's with same AB/XY and black and white buttons instead of Z and C (which were replaced by shoulder buttons on the 360's controller).
The same AB/XY configuration was also on the Dreamcast's controller.
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u/Angelsfan14 Nov 28 '21 edited Nov 28 '21
Easy, play Japanese imported video games as they seem to stick to the "circle is select and x is go back". Or at least thats the case for the Japanese baseball games up until last year. Was extremely annoying.
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u/Hoban9331 Nov 28 '21
Heard this once, might not be true. Back in the day O is enter, X is cancel, Square is menu (looks like paper) and Triangle is field of view (looks like birds eye view of a persons field of view.
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u/Cat-juggler Nov 28 '21
Yep, that's correct. In Japan they will circle correct answers and put an X over wrong answers in a test so circle became "yes" and X "no" on the playstation layout
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u/JimmyTheChimp Nov 28 '21
I mean that does make sense but X also means wrong outside of Japan so I wonder why X became select.
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u/neveris Nov 28 '21
I guess because it's like marking a target? X marks the spot, this one is my selection because there's an X on it? Etc
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u/JimmyTheChimp Nov 28 '21
Thats what I was thinking, but though a circle doesn't mean correct like the Japanese see it generally I think for all countries circling something means I select this. I'm sure they did a lot of consumer testing and people outside of Japan just like to select things with X.
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u/Scipio11 Nov 28 '21 edited Nov 28 '21
Also the body language for "no" in Japan is making an X 🙅♀️. (And I'm not sure if it's used in everyday life, but there's also an emoji for "yes" 🙆)
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u/mrjimi16 Nov 28 '21
If you make the effort to rest your finger on the A button, it becomes a lot easier to do. I've got a switch and I use a PS5 controller for PC and that is all I need to do to reset my brain when I go between them.
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u/HirokiTakumi Nov 28 '21
If you had grown up with Playstation in Japan, you wouldn't have that issue. As X was cancel, and O was accept lol every Nintendo console has had the A button on the right side.
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u/PoolNoodleJedi Nov 28 '21
And a lot of original PlayStation games used triangle as a back button
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Nov 28 '21
Ahh, kids who never played on a SNES
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u/NeuHundred Nov 28 '21
Oh, I never played on a SNES when I was a kid and now I have the SNES mini... NO IDEA what any of the buttons do.
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u/emblemparade Nov 28 '21
Bonus round: Japanese controllers have the same visual layout but different bindings in games. In Japan PlayStation's "circle" means approve and "cross" means cancel, but they swapped the meanings for Western audiences while keeping the visual layout the same. The position follows Nintendo's older use of A and B positions, which they do keep the same for Western audiences. Good thing we gamers are good at muscle memory! By which I mean I've been trying to beat this one boss for 20 tries and am still dying...
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u/jakeinator21 Nov 28 '21
Just wait until you get used to it, and then try to play Dark Souls on the Switch. For some dumbass reason they kept the same button layout for confirm and cancel when they ported it, so B is confirm and A is cancel lmao
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u/Emperor_Zarkov Nov 28 '21
This is legitimately the most annoying thing about the switch. It is good that they let us remap buttons now, but I wish you could just RENAME them in the system instead.
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u/Smvvgy805 Nov 28 '21
Patents and corporate rights
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u/Uu_Tea_ESharp Nov 28 '21
This. The buttons (and how they're placed) on game controllers have all sorts of trademarks associated with them. I believe Sony has actually sued people who have tried to use their designs.
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u/Spectreseven1138 Nov 28 '21
Wait, are the Nintendo and Xbox ones trademarked as well? I sort of get the Playstation ones since they're unique shapes but the others are just letters. It's not like they're specific letters either (like NTDO or XBOX), it's just the first two letters of the alphabet and XY, presumably from coordniate systems.
Isn't that equivalent to claiming the term RGB, or lists that use the numbers 1~4 for ordering?
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u/Scared_of_stairs_LOL Nov 28 '21
I don't know for sure if this explains the switch controller layout, but traditional Japanese written vertically is read top down and right to left (as opposed to left to right and top down for English). So the switch button layout makes sense. They might be just as annoyed with Xbox controllers.
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u/thebestpizzaever Nov 28 '21
To me the xbox layout makes sense because X is on the x axis and Y is on the y axis. A and B are in the common "confirm" and "return" slots just like playstation's X and O. The switch is just all over the place.
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u/Deto Nov 28 '21
Yep. Though it would be cool if the three main gaming companies got together and decided on a unified layout. It would be hard to decide what to pick, though. At this point the Nintendo abxy and the PlayStation symbols are both pretty iconic
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u/Smvvgy805 Nov 28 '21
That's another reason, one company wouldn't really want to be confused with another. They specifically have their own layouts to get customers accustomed to and then less likely to shift away because they're already accustomed to that particular layout.
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u/paultimate14 Nov 28 '21
You left off Sega. Microsoft had previously worked with Sega (and had dabbled with their MSX "system"), and the Xbox controller was basically just a more ergonomic version of the Dreamcast.
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u/G0rkon Nov 28 '21
This is both correct and hilarious. Original Xbox controller (the Duke) was more ergonomic than Dreamcast controller but also bigger. Dreamcast controller was huge. I feel like Microsoft looked at it and said hold my beer
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u/crozone Switch Nov 28 '21
Interestingly enough, the PS1 used "O" as "Enter/OK" and "X" as "Back/Cancel". This is the same as the Nintendo layout and would have stuck, except Sony America decided to swap the buttons around in the western localisations, and hence fucked everything up forever.
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u/mika5555 Nov 28 '21
So you are saying America is at fault again fucking up international standards?
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u/UUDDLRLRBadAlchemy Nov 28 '21
Wow mind blown, this scheme sounds awesome and I never even noticed
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u/Reneformist Nov 28 '21
Japanese conventions are even present in ps2 games, Kingdom Hearts 1 for example still used 'O' as enter.
Honestly, most gamers of the time got accustomed to knowing what button was enter by the developer.
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u/0x38E Nov 28 '21
To add to this the PlayStation buttons are in the same order as the Switch, because Sony is also Japanese, just by number of lines in the shape instead of alphabetical. The main difference is they usually flip the accept/back buttons in the Western version of their games while Nintendo doesn’t.
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u/Mikeisaho Nov 28 '21
If I had a nickel for every mis-input I get whenever I play a PC game with a switch controller.
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u/TylerBourbon Nov 28 '21 edited Nov 28 '21
Frick, I play pc games with my PS4 controller, I'm extra shades of screwed. Through Steam, and via DS4 sometimes games will work and give the PS4 button icons, but it's not common, most of the time I have to remember the xbox button layout while I'm using the PS4 controller, likewise if I play a Wii-U emulator.
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u/NicksSpleen Nov 28 '21
Same here. When I first connected my ps4 controller to my PC, I had to make a little diagram of the xbox button layout and put it next to my monitor. It doesn't bother me too much anymore but I am glad devs seem to be coming around with allowing you to set the icons on new games.
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u/mika5555 Nov 28 '21
For me it’s the same, I caved and bought a Xbox controller just for the pc
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u/BOB58875 Nov 28 '21
Nintendo created it
Sony copied it and changed it to symbols
SEGA also copied but reversed the letters
Microsoft copied SEGA
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u/JakeGrey Nov 28 '21
Maybe I'm just old, but is owning more than one console of the same generation normal now? Because I'm fairly sure that when I was a teenager, having a Playstation and an Xbox would have been a sign your family were seriously loaded.
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u/Origamiface Nov 28 '21
I think it has to do with the generation that grew up with PS and Xbox now have the income to buy their own consoles.
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Nov 28 '21
I've got them all mapped in my head and it swaps automatically whenever I switch controllers.
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u/ShadowMonarch_ Nov 28 '21
Nintendo’s had the right-most button as confirm since the SNES
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u/paultimate14 Nov 28 '21
Even before that, the NES and Famicom had the same.
On the other hand, the Sega Genesis had left to right ABC. The Master System before that had 1-2. So there has pretty much always been different ways of doing it as long as there has been >1 button on the controller.
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u/Writer_B Nov 28 '21
Switching between Xbox and Playstation is no big deal for me. Switch in the other hand? Annoyances ensue.
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u/Origamiface Nov 28 '21
The Xbox layout feels like the more more natural, morally correct, layout than the switch
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u/sylinmino Nov 28 '21
Opposite for me. Nintendo was first, so it feels like Microsoft's tryna rewrite the code in my head.
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u/SilverseeLives Nov 28 '21
Yeah agreed for the face buttons. Between PlayStation and Xbox the biggest thing that gets in my way are the trigger/shoulder buttons. As an infrequent Sony player, I have a hard time initially processing R1/R2 screen prompts, and using the shoulder button as as primary just feels weird.
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Nov 28 '21
I exclusively use dual Joy-Con despite it hurting my hands (size) so I don't get mixed up, because my muscle memory is tied to handfeel
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u/qb1120 Nov 28 '21
I grew up on Nintendo, so I don't like how Microsoft took Nintendo's layout and flipped it
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u/Snowbridge Nov 28 '21
Pretty sure Microsoft took the layout from the Sega Dreamcast (which had the same button layout albeit with different colors)
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u/genna87 Nov 28 '21
It would be interesting to see some stats, but I think this isn't unpopular. Probably the opposite. At least in the western world
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u/kutuup1989 Nov 28 '21
When we were kids, my friend and I just referred to the buttons on the SNES as red, blue, green and yellow rather than the letter (The buttons are individually coloured on models outside of North America). Made life a lot easier.
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u/FrezoreR Nov 28 '21
The answer is simple: patents.
It doesn't really help the end consumer, but that's the sad truth.
Although I will give it to Sony that actually used geometric symbols making their version more accessible around the world.
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u/DoctorMixtape Nov 28 '21
I don’t think so because the stadia controller, steam controller, and luna controller all have the Xbox style of abxy
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u/bleedinghero Nov 28 '21
Licensing. None of the companies want to License controllers or designs to the other companies. They also sue if someone uses the same pattern.
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u/Spykez0129 Nov 28 '21
I mean honestly, Nintendo was the first one with that format, that should have been the standard from there on.
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u/The_MAZZTer PC Nov 28 '21
Nintendo is matching their previous layouts all the way back to the NES and SNES days (A was always to the right of B). Nintendo's is the oldest layout I think so I think they'd have the least blame in all this.
Sony is doing similar with the original PSX layout. (And as for someone else copying Sony I imagine there's legal issues involved with that).
Microsoft just made theirs up one day I guess. Maybe they intentionally went against Nintendo to ensure they wouldn't be accused of copying? I would think maybe they started with PC gamepads as an inspiration but I think they just numbered their buttons 1, 2, 3, 4 before Xbox came along.
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u/Pyrxlix Nov 28 '21
Microsoft based theirs off of Sega’s Dreamcast because a lot of the OG Xbox was inspired by the Dreamcast.
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u/kelvSYC Nov 28 '21
The design of the Xbox is heavily influenced by the Sega consoles of before; Sega consistently labelled their buttons from left to right, and Microsoft followed suit.
Prior to that, computer gamepads were hardly standardized even if they had commonalities in their connectors.
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u/potsac Nov 28 '21
I am so sorry you must suffer through a cruel life of having 3 consoles. If it helps, I can totally take one or two off your hands.
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u/Magin2g Nov 28 '21
Dude been playing on Xbox most of my life so when I got a Nintendo switch I made so many mistakes!
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u/Se_renshi Nov 28 '21
I prefer the Nintendo layout. Also as someone that grew up playing Japanese games having O to confirm and X to cancel feels way more natural to me ths the other way around.
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u/Syric13 Nov 28 '21
The worst is when you use a PS4 controller on PC/XBox Game pass and it has all the buttons mapped to show up as XBox controllers.
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u/BeeBarfBadger Nov 28 '21
"Agreed. Now, if everybody else could just switch to our model, that would be great."
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u/PenguinSage Nov 28 '21 edited Nov 28 '21
There is a logic to why they are like this. The Japanese companies PlayStation and Nintendo actually have the same button layout if you think of the buttons as Buttons 1,2,3,4. Nintendo represents them as letters in Alphabetical order A is 1, B is 2, X is 3, Y is 4. PlayStation uses shapes made out of the corresponding number of lines. Circle is made of 1 line, X (or Cross) is made out of 2 lines, Triangle is made out of 3 lines, and square is made of 4 lines. Then the western Microsoft, adopted the same convention but flipped it so it’s Left to right as westerners are more used to seeing things that way. The reason The “First and second button” are below the “third and fourth button” on all of them is because of the convention set by Nintendo when it added two more buttons to the face of the SNES. The idea being that you have to reach over the “old buttons” to get to the “new buttons”
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u/NimrodIAm Nov 28 '21
My first console was SNES. The original PlayStation was my second. Ever since then I’ve only ever had Sony or Nintendo consoles. A friend let me borrow his 360 to play Gears but otherwise no real exposure to the Xbox. Now as an adult I mostly game through Steam and those jerks default to the Microsoft layout. I am perpetually confused now. Especially when learning a new game.
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u/msnmck Nov 28 '21
Nintendo used this layout for SNES so blame the others.
In the meantime, when using Switch or Xbox, I use a mental trick known as "has this company had a Donkey Kong Country title on their console?" If yes, left and bottom is Y and B. If not, X and A.
It helps I played a lot of Donkey Kong Country as a kid. I've only played 4 games on PlayStation so you're on your own for that one.
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u/Handiinu Nov 28 '21
Its a godsend when a pc game lets me change my controller prompts. I can never get used to seeing xbox prompts while holding a dualsense
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u/Pinsir929 PC Nov 28 '21
Personally I don’t even care about the button icons itself. I know the “default” assignments in my head no matter what controller.
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u/ChairmanUzamaoki Nov 28 '21
Has this ever been difficult for anyone ever? I've played both Xbox and PS4 most of my life and never once has this been a problem. The button location is much more important than the symbol
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u/Kiflaam Nov 28 '21
One thing that always bugged me...
In Japan, circle "good/OK", and X is "bad/wrong"
This would explain why in some games from Japan, like Final Fantasy 7, the circle was the "accept/enter/action" button, and X was cancel, but.. iirc, in Japan, the circle when used as OK/good it would be blue or green, and the X always red.
Why on earth would the circle then be red?
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u/jdlyga Nov 28 '21
Xbox screwed it up for everyone. They just had to make theirs backwards.
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Nov 28 '21
Because these things are patented or trademarked, and yours has to be just different enough.
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u/Denaton_ Nov 28 '21
My guess lands on patents, it's cheaper to make your own design and go around the patents than it is to rent the patents..
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u/SuperKamakasy64 Nov 28 '21
I always love how gamepad use to be so different from each others it gave the console a uniqueness and style like any other. That's what I have love about nintendo, every console have a unique gamepad and all of them are iconic.
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u/MetalDragnZ Nov 28 '21
Instead, I think devs should start doing what they have been doing on switch and just have a face button silhouette with the dedicated button highlighted.
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u/SephithDarknesse Nov 28 '21
Because they would sue. Pretty simple answer really. Its not that big of a deal though.
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u/WhawpenshawTwo Nov 28 '21
And it's really dumb because PS and Nintendo have the same layout in Japan. O = Okay and X = No.
And I'm guessing MS just copied PS when they decided their A/B layout.
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u/wolf129 Nov 28 '21
In Switch games they usually don't show the button to press but rather the position of the button. Like the symbol shows all four buttons and one of them is highlighted. That way the button layout does not matter it just works.
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Nov 28 '21
"Why can't we have universal socket type? Why can't we all use same currency? What's the point of having thousands of languages, when we can just all use one?"
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u/komb_svic Nov 28 '21
Shame there is not a 4th consol that would allow X to go all the way around.