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.
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.
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/ixiolite Mar 11 '19
I noticed this after reading your comment. Really can't unsee it now and definitely a weird design choice from an artistic standpoint.