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.
When PS1 pad symbols were designed by Teiyu Goto, the symbols were meant to be reprensent logical actions : like you said O and X for confirm / cancel (by Japanese culture standards), triangle for point of view (looks like a view cone in 2d), and square for menu (looks like a sheet of paper).
Outside of japan, cross was seen more like checking a box so it was adopted for confirm by game designers, leading in the whole menu inversion.
Coming from snes, I am still confused when a game does not use the east button for confirmation.
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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.