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Put it to the right next time, I dare you
(sh.itjust.works)
It's been done.
I like this button layout. If one of the face buttons is gonna be used more than all the others, why shouldn't it be bigger?
It also has the advantage that nearly every button is a completely different size or shape. Making it easier to use if you have trouble knowing where your fingers are without looking.
button prompts can be recognizable by silhouette
Is this not recognizible enough?
No, because Zelda has unironically one of the worst examples of button layouts due to them being different to other games for seemingly no reason.
Why is sprint the bottom face button instead of right trigger? Why is the top face button jump?
Even basic things like running and jumping are so difficult and unintuitive. So many actions are all tied to the badly placed jump button with no prompts given, like shield surfing and triggering flurry rushes.
No, look. The controls in BOTW/TOTK are really simple. The sprint/go fast button is always B. Unless you’re on a horse - then it’s A.
Or if you’re swimming or climbing, because then it’s X.
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The gamecube controller is how I memorized the x- and y-axis of the coordinate system.
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Man, when this shit hit the streets I thought there was no way this controller wouldn't suck, but turned out to be a great layout.
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Nobody's been brave enough to name the buttons N(orth), S(outh), E(ast), and W(est).
It would be weird to have buttons changing position to face north all the time
How about 12, 3, 6 and 9?
The Duke has entered the chat
You mean 11, 2, 5, and 8? ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ
Thanks for waking memories! I had one of these. Highly modded, with a modchip, other OS and a large HDD for my game backups. I could also watch videos etc. Most fun I had with a console. This was the pinnacle IMHO. The next gen started with the enshittification process.
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This is yet another one of the many reasons Steam is amazing. Not only do they have an abstracted layer that allows devs to insert control mappings that adapt to show your controller preference… but even BETTER, they have an option for “Universal” controller button iconography where they just show the relative position of the face buttons in a diamond layout ❖ where the button indicated is a filled circle ● and the others are outlined ○ - rather than letters like ABXY.
So like this :
…instead of “× or A or B” from PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo (respectively).
Another option, if you want to be able to describe them with words instead of pictures, it naming them after the cardinal directions.
Me already teaching my 6 year old: "press the L button" "Not left on the dpad" "That's the left stick button" "No not left on the left stick" "Not the left on the right stick" "that's ZL!"
And now with this suggestion: "No not the left face button either!"
No, let's not use cardinal directions anymore.
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It was too good for this world.
Emulating Switch I realized how much I love the button prompts. Since the controller could be rotated they just filled in the button to press.
Until you go to your inventory in TOTK and it says “press Y to sort items” and I always press X instead cuz 2 decades of Xbox Controllers.
I have, and always will, maintain that the Xbox controller button layout is the only one that makes any sense to me.
The PlayStation one makes sense to me too but that's probably cause I grew up with a PS2. Now the switch on the other hand, that scheme is a fucking abomination. I actually use a remapped Xbox controller when I play mine.
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To be fair to the copyright troll, the Switch buttons are still in the same relative positions as they were in the SNES.
Every non-Nintendo controller since has just been iteration after iteration of "lemme copy your homework, don't worry I'll change it up a bit."
In fairness, the PS1 Dualshock was damn near perfection. There's a reason everyone has copied it ever since.
Before that, you should have seen the bullshit we had to go through to move the camera around.
Before that, you should have seen the bullshit we had to go through to move the camera around.
I lived through it lol. The DualShock took what worked from the N64 controller (analog and rumble) and added it to the standard PSX controller. Which itself took what worked from the SNES controller (everything) and added another set of shoulder buttons and handles. Later, MS and Nintendo moved the left analog stick above the thumb, and that's basically where we're at so far as standard button layout goes. I'd argue that the Genesis 6-button layout is superior for stuff like fighting games, but for the most part today's standard layout is standard for a reason.
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I don't have any problem with the PS controller, since the X is a shape, not a letter, but the Xbox layout always fucks me up so bad since it's become standard for PC games. The Nintendo layout was hardcoded into my brain in 1991 when I played Super Mario World. I don't think I'll ever really get used to the Xbox one even though I probably won't be playing on Nintendo consoles any more.
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Could be worse, it could be Japan where the purpose of X vs Circle is swapped.
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PlayStation was originally X = B O = A Because in Japan they use a circle to mean the same thing as in English a check mark is used. That is: "yes", or "correct". The cross means "no", or "wrong" in the same context in English and Japanese.
At some point the English language PlayStation games started flipping the meaning of X and O. Not sure why. Maybe to align with Xbox? So eventually Sony changed it in Japan too in order to standardise globally.
American-made PlayStation games were using X for confirm and O for cancel long before the Xbox came out. It's probably partially because X is blue and O is red; we don't have cultural context for the symbols, but we do have cultural context for the colors.
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Nah. Xbox came out years after the PlayStation. The reason the usage of the ps controller got switched in NA is because they did some studies and people just tried to use ps X-button as the accept button.
Xbox is an abomination amalgamation of everything that came before it: Nintendo, PlayStation, and Sega. Look at those controllers, keeping in mind they came first, and it's painfully obvious what Microsoft was up to. They can't even come up with creative names. Hell, they even bought halo. And in an era of free online services, only Microsoft pushed everything into being paid and micro transactions. A LOT of the enshittification is Microsoft's fault.
Compare to N64, which came before xbox, and know that Microsoft could have made any design they wanted, but didn't.
I'm pretty sure that Nintendo created this problem.
They used a/b/x/y on the SNES. The Genesis, it's direct competitor, had a/b/c.
Then Xbox copied them and Sony copied them... But each had to have a slight variation because Nintendo being Nintendo, they'd get sued into next week....
I definitely blame Nintendo for this one.
First, sony didnt copy them. The symbols on the PS controller had special meanings in Japanese. X = incorrect/cancel O = correct/accept. English localized games reversed them for whatever reason. Also, xbox actually derived its layout from the Dreamcast. MS was partnered with Sega, thus the xbox carries on the Sega legacy.
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The only layout I hate is Nintendos. At least with Xbox and PlayStation it’s:
A = X.
B = O.
Y = Triangle
X = Square
With Nintendo, they turn it all slightly and I absolutely hate it. It’s the only one that I have to retrain my brain/coordination for. When I play a Nintendo game through emulation (fuck Nintendo), I notice immediately when the controls didn’t properly migrate from my other games because now all of the sudden A is going back a menu. -.-
To be fair, they used that setup first. And PS originally copied it, but for some reason switched the functions of X and O in the West. In Japan, those symbols O often used for agree/correct/confirm and vice versa for X. It is weird that X became confirm here .
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There must be a stupid patent about an X button for every position on a game controller.
If controller manufacturers stuck to their original color scheme it would be way less confusing for most, with the color button prompts on games it used to be much easier to use a different console, but all of the newer controllers are turning colorless which makes switching to another one and getting the hang of it much harder.
this lack of a standard layout is annoying
the xbox style layout, which a lot of pc games such as Hollow Knight expect, is not something im used to, especially with yes and no buttons (a/b) being reversed compared to nintendo switch
and a lot of games dont have good remapping
especially with yes and no buttons (a/b) being reversed compared to nintendo switch
It's also reversed on Playstation. Games use "X" for "yes" and "O" for "cancel". But only in the west, it's reversed in Japan.
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this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
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