The Picard ManeuverA supportive husband
Jo MiranWhy does Nintendo use a backwards button layout?
I believe because because they consider the outside buttons to be more natural to press first, then you work your way in.
Even starting with the NES controller, button A was primary and on the outside.
👍Maximum Derek👍I was thinking, “I need this for the first 2 hours every time I switch to/from a Nintendo game.”
becausechemistryA better question would be why Microsoft went with a nonstandard layout when they designed the Xbox controller. Nintendo had been using the A-to-the-right layout since 1990.
Ricky RigatoniWhere do you feel Playstation is on this
Playing with shape blocks without a care in the world
I wish I were them
They have funny shapes.
Playstation still basically conforms to a on the right, since O is generally used as a “confirm” button, and X is generally used as a back out button. So, they fill the same role as the conventional layout, they just abstract it in a kind of more fun way.
maxinstuffPlaystation games over the years have used X for confirm in many (western) regions. I’m not sure the origin of this but it was always that way growing up.
Localisations like Final Fantasy using circle were the exceptions to the rule.
Circle being confirm for everybody is a relatively recent thing
andrew_bidlawPatents, probably. A needed % of deviation.
Sega consoles used the ABC/XYZ left to right format. If you assume X and Y are axis, then X on the left (horizontal) and Y on the right (vertical) makes more sense than Nintendo’s Y on the horizontal and X on the vertical.
I’ve never figured out the reasoning.
I mean it kind of, instinctually makes some level of sense to me. With nintendo’s stuff, the A button is on the right, and the B button is on the left, so you’re reading it right to left, instead of left to right. Hence, the accompanying swap in X and Y.
The real question is why X and Y were swapped from the GameCube controller. Throws me off all the time when learning a new Switch game.
sigmaklimgrindset…did…you not play on a GBA/DS? The Switch is the exact layout of those + extra sticks.
Correct, I did not. I’ve been a home console guy.
Real talk, I have never met someone who didn’t own a version of the DS. It was such a huge thing at school and being out and about, especially collecting street passes with friends/kids you’d just met.
Sorry if I came across as a dick. Just genuinely didn’t even consider someone might not have grown up with a Nintendo handheld of some sort lol.
You didn’t
samus12345GBA only had A and B.
“Layout progression”
Oh, I see what you’re saying.
Division between console camps. “No, mine is the right layout!” Frustration when switching, creating a soft lock in effect.
I always assumed it’s because they are from Japan and there they have a lot of things right to left. For them it may seem natural to start at the right and go left.
It thought of that but the old Sega controllers were ABC XYZ.
The real answer is that nobody knows because nobody wrote it down.
The most likely reason is because the only game and watch was a single button where the A was on the original NES (famicom) and that was the primary button, then the secondary button, or B, was placed slightly inward where it was assumed it would be used less.
I think the real answer was actually Japanese reading right to left, and applying that to alphabet buttons. What I find more interesting is the insistence that A must be the Accept button and B the back button; Nintendo games and OG Japanese games in general tend to use that layout, including PlayStation X and O (which to be fair makes even more sense for no/yes). US games afterwards flipped out, even for PlayStation games.
Really, Microsoft changing that up is genuinely evil to anyone already gaming, although I believe Sega also was left to right, but their three/six button layout doesn’t count. Not sure how they handled accept/back though.
Sega controllers predate XBox by a lot and their layout was left to right (ABC/XYZ).
That’s what I meant; but yeah, I think people collectively decided to forget Sega.
Sega had the dreamcast with an “A on the bottom”, basic xbox style layout about 3 years before the xbox came out, as an extension of their genesis six button layout. With how friendly sega has been with microsoft historically, and especially the similarities between the classic “duke” controller and the dreamcast controller, the increasing focus on online play, I think maybe there’s a through-line from the classic sega button layout and the modern xbox button layout.
To be fair, Sega was a US-oriented company long before it was cool, so I guess they may be the pioneers that confused the rest of us ages later.
After all, Sega does what Nintendon’t
I’ve seen a video with the history of all of the button layouts
It’s a long enough video and just goes through the history of different layouts for different controllers and tries to reason why they are what they are.
Why Are Controller Buttons Like That?
Thank you! I’ll make sure to give it a watch.