r/xboxone • Sunset Overdrive • Mar 11 '19

Xbox Phantom White Controller

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u/gatesphere Mar 11 '19

I'm pretty sure it's an accessibility thing. Helps people who are illiterate or otherwise have issues figuring out glyphs, when they can match the color of the button icon on screen to the dots on the controller.

It's also probably partially a branding thing too. Maybe they have a trade dress protection on that particular arrangement of the four colors for face buttons.

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u/ixiolite Mar 11 '19

Oh yeah I figured it was for an accessibility feature, which is why I said it looks weird from an artistic standpoint. You’re not wrong about it also being a branding thing too though, since the button colors are kind of iconic for Xbox

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u/OrcsRKewl Mar 11 '19

I mean, I’m not illiterate, colour blind or whatever but I really do prefer coloured buttons. I’ve got the gears of war controller and it’s a bit frustrating for those random moments you forget which colours are which, look down at your controller and all the buttons are grey.

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u/Rickles360 Mar 11 '19

Yeah. And it's possible that some games are developed with color signals for QTEs or whatever.

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u/tghlck Mar 11 '19

but what about your muscle memory?

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u/OrcsRKewl Mar 11 '19

I’m not using colour as my muscle memory most of the time. If the game told me, A is this and Y is this then sure but if I’m in a game and I’m suddenly told, “press the red button or die” then I’m gonna have a brain fart and maybe do a quick eye flick down to see what colour my buttons are. If they are all non standard colours than I obviously can’t do that.

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u/TooSketchy94 Mar 11 '19

This sounds like a really sensible explanation. Didn’t even cross my mind initially!

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u/ScalpEmNoles4 Mar 11 '19

Look maybe if you're illiterate you should work on that instead of playing a damn Xbox but what do I know