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u/OSTz 1h ago
A/B for OK/Cancel being flipped is a real pain. I haven't found X/Y being flipped to be all that bad.
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u/JDBCool 1h ago
Extra real pain in games that have been ported to Switch like Dark Souls Remastered.
Switch muscle memory says one thing, BUT they kept the controls layout EXACTLY from Xbox.
So "B" is actually "A"
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u/ScarlettDX 1h ago
the arkham games on switch play exactly the same but the menus have the flipped controls.
as someone who's 100% all of them its fucking infuriating.
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u/redbird317 1h ago
I was just playing this the other day on switch. Its got me all messed up
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u/SicilianEggplant 1h ago
On the Switch you can remap buttons in its system settings. It’s saved per controller, and can save a few presets.
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u/turbotum 35m ago
it's terrible, and remapping the buttons is not good enough because then bottom button is roll and muscle memory fails.
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u/Japnzy 1h ago
Go back amd play some old JRPGs on ps1/2. Circle is ok and X is cancel.
Its fucking insane.
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u/stipo42 1h ago
Because it makes more sense from a symbolic standpoint.
Circle the thing you want, cross off the things you don't want
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u/JimboTCB 41m ago
X marks the spot, O is nothing
Either way round "makes more sense", it's entirely a matter of cultural context.
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u/60Dan06 1h ago
Japan has it to this day, while the rest of the world uses it differently. But it makes sense, circle the correct thing, cross out the unvanted thing.
In their culture circle is used way more than for example ✅2
u/afamiliarspirit 21m ago
Do they still have it that way in Japan? I thought I remembered a thing a few years ago where Sony made an effort to standardize it at least around their software.
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u/Rufus_Bojangles 1h ago
That always made more sense to me. A circle is like a universal symbol for positive/confirmation, while X usually denotes a negative. But it's nice when games give you the choice to switch them around.
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u/Bendythenightfury Android 1h ago
This. I can manage to flip flop between Xbox and Playstation since it's the same controls in a way, Nintendo though, I'm so used to pressing the bottom button to accept and forget about that's the back button
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u/soundofmind 1h ago
You can switch (no pun intended) A/B globally in the Switch 1 & 2 settings menu.
You can also switch X/Y, but I think that's tied to whatever paired controller you are using.
Doing at least the A/B switch was great for keeping my muscle memory happy.
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u/HeKis4 2h ago
Meanwhile Valve making a controller with Xbox's face buttons but calls the read buttons R1/R2/L1/L2.
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u/cravex12 1h ago
I still confuse the LB and LT / RB and RT thing so I find that as hilarious as it would be useful
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u/Devatator_ PC 1h ago
B = bumper, T = trigger
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u/Nino_sanjaya 1h ago
I always think it's Bottom & Top. No wonder I keep failing
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u/pineapplecatz 56m ago
Yes! Same here, and I think Bottom and Top make so much sense that I've experimented with flipping the controls for some games and using LB as left bottom and LT as Left Top. It feels nice, but it's not always possible to rebind controls because I'm lazy.
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u/grayhaze2000 1h ago
I always thought B stood for button, as it's a digital input like the A, B, X, Y buttons.
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u/Rebelius 51m ago
Those buttons were originally pressure sensitive on the Xbox, and the PS1/PS2 equivalents.
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u/YtseThunder 5m ago
This pressure sensitive buttons were the shit, miss them. Guess they became somewhat redundant, once proper progressive triggers were a thing.
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u/BaconIsntThatGood 1h ago
I can know what it means and still mentally fuck up while reading it on screen.
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u/UFONomura808 1h ago
I think playstation did a better job at labeling this. Simple and easy to remember, R1/R2/R3
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u/Nerkeilenemon 1h ago
My best friend and I haven't had a playstation or playstation gamepad in 20 years. Still, when we give each other advices in games using our xbox controllers (pc players) we will always say R1, R2, L1 or L2. LT/LB should have been renamed a long time ago.
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u/goumlechat 1h ago
If you have an azerty layout on your computer, you have to swap z, w, q and a for Valve games because the devs don't bother with it. But since they don't make games anymore it has become a non issue.
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u/blueberrycinnamon 1h ago
For some reason, I'm pretty good with switching up my mental button stack depending on which controller I'm holding. That said, there are some switch games (like dark souls) that uses the bottom face button as confirm and the right face button as cancel, and because I'm using the switch, that really screws me up.
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u/Siukslinis_acc 1h ago
There are some patterns. Like, I played god of war PC and ragnarok on playstation. So I already know what position button does what.
There are control conventions. So oftentimes you don't need to look at the button as the same position button does the same thing in all devices, like the south button in "jump" in platformers.
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u/project-shasta PC 1h ago
Funny thing is that A/B doesn't confuse me but I can't for the life of me get the X/Y swap to work in my head...
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u/MegaMaluco 1h ago
I'm the exact opposite. Both of us on a single controller would be either unstoppable or unable to even pass the start menu.
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u/GreatestBox 36m ago
Honestly same for me now. That's because ok/back actions are so common that you end up knowing what to do after some time. But whenever the game says press Y, I have to check if it is left or up
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u/Dinosbacsi 1h ago
And then PS has the X on the bottom
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u/EldritchMacaron 1h ago
And in Japan, i've seen ✖️ been used as a "B" and ⚫️ as a "A" (at least on my imported MHF3 on PSP), so it’s even more confusing
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u/Snoe_Gaming 1h ago
Almost all Japanese games have the far right button as enter and the bottom button as cancel.
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u/EldritchMacaron 1h ago
And it makes much more sense to have X as No and O as yes for the symbols
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u/imSwan 1h ago
After so many years on Playstation when I was a teenager my brain rewired itself to see X as yes and O as no
I know it's wrong but I can't help it
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u/Vectorman1989 1h ago
Circle is 'yes' and cross is 'no' in Japanese culture/design language but I think they changed them for the western releases of games.
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u/EldritchMacaron 1h ago
And to this day I don’t get the change, X for no and O for yes makes much more sense even here in the west
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u/hildebrand22 1h ago
I believe i read that all the buttons of ps face are supposed to translate to an rpg mechanic. X for "no", O for "yes", a triangle for map to represent the character arrow, and square was open menu since it looks like a little window.
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u/notacyborg 27m ago
I thought I read long ago that Triangle was the third button (three points) and square was the fourth button (four points).
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u/Inevitable-Study502 1h ago edited 1h ago
thats not x, its a cross, or batsu
and was designed to be cancel/no button and circle (maru) being yes/confirm button
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u/lordyeti 1h ago
Wasn't square supposed to represent a piece of paper, so it was for menus, and Triangle is also like an arrow, so it was for camera perspective changes, or something like that.
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u/BochocK 1h ago
Nintendo is the og one, but I'm too used to xbox now
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u/Telesto1087 1h ago
I think up until the PS5, Japan still used circle for confirm and cross to cancel, in accordance to the Nintendo layout.
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u/lawlmuffenz 1h ago
Circle is used as 'correct', and X as incorrect, because Japanese cultural stuff.
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u/Hobomanchild 30m ago
and where I'm from a circled answer meant 'you fucked up here' and an X'd out answer meant 'aw hell no'.
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u/PrimeTinus 1h ago
Xbox could have picked any other letter or number but they decided to pick the exact same and shuffle it around
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u/Hippobu2 1h ago
Tbf, the Xbox controller can trace its root back to the Sega Genesis, so they aren't actually that far off from one another.
Sega helped develop the Xbox, and so they used the same layout as the Dreamcast, which had the same A B (C) under X Y (Z) layout they had since the Genesis.
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u/MerfSauce 1h ago
Now the black and white buttons instead of LB and RB buttons make sense to me. Did not know about segas involvement before.
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u/treeeelo 1h ago
Because the X button is on the X axis and the Y button on the Y axis, makes more sense than nintendos arbitrary system
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u/Kenny_Bi-God_Omega 1h ago edited 1h ago
FWIW I prefer the Sega/Xbox layout, but Nintendo’s isn’t arbitrary. It goes back to the NES, when there were only two buttons.
A is essentially the forward or “accept” button and B is essentially the back “cancel” button.
So their placement makes logical sense. Right = forward. Left = back. It’s the same as the forward and back arrows on an internet browser, for example.
Moving to the SNES era, there were four buttons in their current placement, but they were paired up in the design. A and B together with a border around them. X and Y together mimicking the other two buttons’ order, with a border around them. So the A and B were still forward and cancel buttons.
In Japan, PS1 games almost all followed this same logic. ‘O’ was accept and on the right. ‘X’ was cancel. If you played Final Fantasy VII on PS1, you’ll remember this was a thing. I want to say MGS was the same.
And it was arbitrarily changed for the west, if anything. The cross symbol meaning yes rather than no is actually way more illogical when you think about it. And the right button meaning forward makes logical sense. Although I can definitely see the argument that the bottom button being the most used button feels logical too. Obviously this is what most of us have defaulted to nowadays.
The Nintendo order also mimics the pedals on a car. A for accelerate on the right. B for brake. Which is probably why Mario Kart continues to use those buttons rather than the triggers.
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u/Nacroma 1h ago edited 1h ago
It's the SNES layout, yes, but they kinda gave up on it from N64 through the Wii as their main control scheme (well, sans Wii Classic Controller and the DS line). And that's exactly the era where the standard controller layout got cemented on other consoles.
Playstation and Xbox have been consistent since their first consoles came out. But, Nintendo has been experimenting with it and that lead to meaningful additions on all modern controllers like camera buttons (now the right stick), triggers buttons and the inclusion of both d-pad and analog stick
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u/5Gmeme 1h ago
I hate how the accept and cancel buttons are different between consoles.
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u/peepeevs 1h ago
Can't these guys just come together and figure out a difinitive layout for these buttons? Usually the way it works in the gaming industry is that producers/desigenrs take inspiration from one another, and eventually consolidate into a roughly singular design. These guys are annoyingly stubborn in their own design.
Or more likely.. it is for legal reasons.. idk
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u/OverwatchRever 1h ago
Every controller has the same named layout for me. I always use ps controller terms just because ps1 was my first consol. It will never change
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u/SissyFanny 1h ago
that's why I'm totally fluent in Xbox even I've never had one :p
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u/myphonebatterysucks 1h ago
On Switch you can remap the buttons. On my pro controller B is A and X is Y, and vice versa.
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u/Round_Musical 46m ago
In the switch 2 settings you can also switch B for confirm and A for cancel if you want
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u/kvjetoslav 1h ago
I own Xbox controller for the past 5 years and it still takes me a second to figure out where is which button.
On the other hand, i owned a PS1 when i was young for a year and 20 years later the button layout is as intuitive as arrows.
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u/neoluxx_ 1h ago
it gets exponentially worse if you’ve been playing a game on Xbox or PS that happens to have a strange, unchangeable mapping (looking at you KH with attack on X), then switch over to a different game on Switch 😩
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u/Yellowspawn 1h ago
I really hate this yeah, like dear xbox if you're going to copy the button names from nintendo, please don't swap them around like that 😄
The worst button is X though, that input always confuses me.
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u/RadicalDog 57m ago
They copied Sega... who were dying at the time, so weird choice.
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u/Crazy_Dave0418 59m ago
They could've followed a bit more on Sega. Since they did take their Duke controller after the Dreamcast.
They could've just went A, B, C, D.
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u/stunkcajyzarc 1h ago
Weirdly enough there’s no transition in my head anymore while playing. It just automatically switches the A and B button and I don’t get tripped up anymore.
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u/Danny-Dynamita 1h ago
X on the X axis and Y on the Y axis is the only right way of doing it.
The Xbox Controller is designed by normal people and the Switch controller is designed by psychopaths.
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u/TheWildManfred 1h ago
Then you use the DS controllers on steam where sometimes a game knows your on a DS controller and sometimes it thinks your on an xbox controller
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u/3p0L0v3sU 1h ago
On steam, there is a setting that globally changes it to the Nintendo configuration but it masses up certain games. Monster hunter rise and world, namely. Those games have settings that let you change the confirm button so its pretty alright though
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u/jaredtheredditor 59m ago
Worst part is half the time THE FUNCTIONS DONT CHANGE! so you still gotta press A for yes and B for no
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u/princerick 1h ago
dude, YES! holy shit thats not just me then...
I normally play 1 game at a time start to finish, so if I'm playing on the Switch 2 when I go back playing on PC I feel like I have to re-learn how to use a controller for the first 5-6 hours.
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u/Melbatla 1h ago
I can deal pretty well with the buttons being labeled differently, but the OK/Cancel buttons being switched in Nintendo vs the rest really trips me every single time 😭
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u/Nathaaaaanie1 1h ago
I've been tempted to modify one of them so they're the same, shouldn't be too difficult. On the switch you can remap buttons too so you could just swap them but the physical buttons would still be wrong 🤷♂️
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u/Kelsenellenelvial 1h ago
I’ve seen worse. Back in the X-box/PS2 days my buddy had some third party wireless controllers. Turns out the wireless part was exactly the same for both systems and would just pair to whichever controller had a button pressed first. Proceed to buddy yelling “where’s the fucking A button” when the game prompts would call out A/B/X/Y, and buddy’s controller had circle/square/triangle/and X in a different location.
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u/Ghost_Online_64 1h ago
i will never understand the XBox controller style toggle design over the symmetrical PS design
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u/FaTaLInfluence 1h ago
Even with remapping the Nintendo buttons, knowing that it's still physically fucked up still bothers me haha.
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u/smk666 51m ago edited 25m ago
As a person who gamed on modern consoles only on PSX and then after two decades got a Switch I still can't get over Nintendo's assignment of A as "Confirm" and B as "Cancel", as on the PSX "X" was "Confirm" and the circle was "Cancel".
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u/Breath-Present 47m ago
Japan release of PSX uses circle for Confirm, X for Cancel too. Maybe Nintendo didnt localize the layout like Sony did.
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u/Gabagoolgoomba 43m ago
I think it's all the bullshit these corporations do. But you know sometimes this is annoying
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u/Metrox_a 42m ago
Me who emulates all threes consoles: lol skill issue. Jokes aside, like blind typing, i know which buttons needs to be pressed and not remembering the symbols they got on them.
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u/ViridianStar2277 36m ago
Playstation got it right because it's different enough from Nintendo's layout. Xbox just copied Nintendo's ABXY and changed it slightly, and that throws me off completely unless I'm using an Xbox Controller to play Dolphin, which is better than using a Switch controller due to the analog triggers.
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u/UnsureSwitch 27m ago
I grew up with a PS2 and PSP so my mind works in shapes, not letters. I'm so confused all the time when playing on emulators
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u/model563 27m ago
Im WAY out of the loop these days, but dont most consoles/controllers allow you to remap buttons and such?
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u/ShoddyAsparagus3186 26m ago
Meanwhile on PC I'm using a PS controller and all the games use Xbox icons.
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u/VisualAnxiety2284 21m ago
I think Nintendo actually added a toggle in settings so you can swap the A and B buttons
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u/RiotLegend 8m ago
This isn’t so bad when the controls are known, like what button to light attack, heavy attack, jump, roll, crouch, sprint, etc. but it’s a nightmare when it’s QTE where you have to press the buttons that show up on screen.
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u/Imaginary-Paper-6177 1h ago
I mostly dont think about the button names anymore. Most games, even across consoles and different games, use the same or similar button schema.
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u/Ldub0775 56m ago
what? the default behavior for switch and xbox are flipped... thats what the post is about
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u/MojoPlayer 1h ago
My mind just associates the position of the buttons with the actions, like the one on the bottom jumps, the one on the left interacts and so on
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u/jabaash 1h ago
Xbox deciding to just not copy the standard layout when the first XBox released has to be one of the worst decisions they made since its effects can still be felt to this day. Western Sony should imo not have copied their confirm/cancel placement and should have stuck with what they originally intended too, especially since the colour and shape language already signify accept for a red (positive) circle (shape often used to highlight things and options) and cancel for a blue (negative) cross (shape often used to specify that something is crossed out). The fact that they have the opposite function to the function they so effectively signal is so fucked up.
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u/StopCriminal 1h ago
Nintendo putting B there is just insane
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u/blueberrypierat 1h ago
Nintendo may have been first, but they’ve always been wrong.
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u/Burger_Soup 1h ago
Insane? It's been that way for decades and long before Xbox existed.
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u/Yaarmehearty 7m ago
It doesn’t make it right, it was always infuriating as somebody that was there when it started.
At least Sega didn’t have its buttons backwards.
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u/BenjyMLewis 1h ago
Nintendo invented it. PlayStation in Japan copied the Nintendo layout. PlayStation USA swapped X and O for no reason. Xbox then copied PlayStation US. Nintendo had it their way the whole time and never changed anything. They don't deserve being called insane lol.
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u/trowgundam 1h ago
Honestly, it doesn't really trip me up in most games anymore. I think the only games where it trips me up is Hatsune Miku Project Diva. And even there it's not much of an issue as I've almost exclusively played it on PC since it was released on Steam.
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u/Emergency-Fault-1729 1h ago
I like to play in hard mode. I have my dualsense controller connected to my switch 2 and have A and B swapped.
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u/marrowfiend 1h ago
I honestly wish more games implemented some sort of universal glyph system rather than catering to specific individual platforms.
All we need is something like the DPAD directionals but slightly different.
My GF grew up with nintendo and when she's round mine using a Dualsense on one of the many games that are XBOX glyph only. I just tell her at this point "its the bottom facebutton."
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u/send420nudes 1h ago
It fucking sucks when you start to play a game on steam with a controller and the game tutorial is with the settings of the remote you're not using.
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u/Siukslinis_acc 1h ago
I remember playing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 on PC. Played with keyboard and didn't have a controller and all prompts were controller ones... So I had to make a list what prompt meant what button and consult it whenever one popped up till I learned it.
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u/bingus-cat-lover 1h ago
This shit sucks dick sm esp if ur playin a hard game Need some time to rewire my brain to even use the buttons properly
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u/WoomyWobble 1h ago
You won't believe how much this screwed me over when playing Ace Combat 7. I hope 8 has proper button remapping.
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u/ItsNotJulius 1h ago
I use Xbox controller because of the left joystick position. However I always use the Playstation button layout in games that support it, and will go out of my way to mod the scheme in if it's available for games that don't support it.
Going ahead though, we should start using the term "Face Up/Down/Left/Right Button.
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u/Connarhea 1h ago
My boys have learned the switch way, I still get confused when they telle what buttons as I learned the ps1 then Xbox way. Infuriating for no reason. Just stay the damn same
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u/SackEagle 1h ago
Its not switch way, its the OG way, super nintendo had that position already. Thats why im used to it, never played much with xbox controller though.
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u/SyberBunn 1h ago
It gets worse when you're playing on meta quest 3 and the buttons are now flipped around and swapped between 2 separate controllers
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u/BruisendTablet 1h ago
I agree. Very very VERY annoying as an XBOX-gamer that just got a Switch 2. Especially in Dave the Diver now where I sometimes have to do quick button actions and I actively have to think which button to press when it pops up 'press X' (for instance).
I know I can swap A and B in the settings but that doesn't solve X/Y yet. It also gives illogical mapping sometimes.
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u/WilhelmScreams 1h ago
I've been playing more games on my Switch lately and the number of times I screw up something like a QTE drives me nuts.
But I also still regularly tell my kids to press the "start" button and they obviously had no idea what I meant.
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u/Stilgar314 1h ago
That's like "flavor" on cigarettes. It was designed to make people feel all other brands are weird.
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u/Beefygrandmole 1h ago
Finding the X button when you own all 3 consoles can be a pain. I do appreciate that Nintendo always shows the 4 buttons and highlights which one to press though.