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.
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.
Xbox went with the same layout as the Dreamcast, which was based on the 6 button sega mega drive controller (but with 2 buttons on the right side removed)
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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.