Retvrn 2 Tradition
I loved that controller as a kid.
Valve has a chance to do something really funny.
They wouldn’t, they use the Xbox layout as that is definitely the most prevalent layout for PCs
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.
Our brains process simple symbols objectively faster than words - it’s why when you see a stop sign they all are 🛑s.
Your 🧠 maps the shape 🛑 more rapidly than the word “STOP” which is made up of several letters that you have to first understand, combine, and then remap in your mind internally.
If they made some stop signs purple triangles, there would be more accidents and traffic violations in relation to stop signs. “STOP” is secondary and takes relatively more time to process than “🛑.”
Symbols that represent objects or entire words are a more direct mapping than words composed of multiple letters.
If you’ll permit me to dust off my old game design hat… similar to the principle as to why it was easier to move Mario in any of his 3D games than it was to move your character in the original PS1 versions of Resident Evil…
…Less layers of “mapping.”
In Super Mario 64, you just angle the stick relative to YOUR view to make Mario go “that” way.
Meanwhile in the original Resident Evil games (and other earlier “3D” perspective games pre-Super Mario 64), tilting “up” on the Dual-Shock L-stick made your character go “forward” from THEIR perspective, not yours.
Part of the challenge was being able to quickly “translate” that layer of mapping in your mind.
TL;DR - 🛑 > ”STOP”
This is how those buttons are described in the Linux Kernel gamepad abi
I still need to physically move my a to b and x to y on my steam deck, it triggers me
Hold up, how do I do this? I literally just mentioned in another comment that my PS controller shows up with XBox buttons and I’d really like to use the neutral one anyways.
On the Deck / Big Picture - it’s under the Controller settings on Steam as seen here :
Billionaire Gabe’s corporate cult is so deep on Lemmy. You can’t talk about anything game related before someone busts in sucking Gabe’s dick and shilling steam
This is good UI design, and the fact that Steam hardware is making Linux more common and usable is also very cool.
But Idk, people were rightfully dragging Gabe Newell over his insane fucking yacht.
Appreciating some neat tech stuff, and hating capitalism aren’t mutually exclusive
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Thanks!
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.
which parts of Xbox/PlayStation controller layouts don’t match? aren’t functions the same, just symbols different?
I have, and always will, maintain that the Xbox controller is trash and PlayStation is clearly superior. never have I used an Xbox controller and thought “yeah this sensitivity curve of nothingnothingnothingEVERYTHING” makes sense
I keep having to say “Big X” and “Little X”.
It was too good for this world.
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.
Here’s a layout I just came up with:
☆ ◇ ❌️ ✔️OMFG BANNED
j/k
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.
Also fascinating is that there was this window of games that tried using various “ok” buttons. Like, I think it was originally the Start button, then some games tried even Triangle or even Square. Conventions are weird.
I just appreciate that Sony put a lot of effort into trying to make their buttons memorable and intuitive. The green Triangle points up, the cancel blue Square is down, the pink Square is left (like where you’d hold a shield), and the red ok/yes Circle is on the right. They made the convention, and haven’t fucked with it at all.
I also appreciate their buttons being labeled and numbered. Like L1 and L2, vs msft’s… Shoulder? Bumper? R1? Trigger? I alternate between shoulder and bumper, but they could have called it Frank and it would have been better. Imagine if they had weirdly given each button proper names.
I see the symbols as like checkboxes or matrices. The ‘X’ has been filled in as yes, the O has been left empty
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 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.
As someone who grew up with N64, then GameCube, then XBOX 360, thankfully I’ve never had this issue with XBOX controllers. (The N64 had six face buttons and the GameCube put the A button directly in the center.) So when I switched to PC after the 360, the transition was natural.
Which is why the Switch controller always fucks me up, and is one of the reasons why I prefer to play Switch games in an emulator, even though I have the actual console: because I can fix the button layout. (The other reasons being 4K, 120FPS, and mod support. Basically what the OLED Switch should have been from the get go—but isn’t—so I have to resort to emulaton.)
Yeah, Nintendo used that control scheme for the SNES and didn’t come back to it until over 10 years later with the DS. I can at least switch between the bottom button being select and the right button being cancel without too much trouble - the bottom being cancel is not only Nintendo, but Sony Japanese games.
In the 90’s me being the edgy teenager I “grew out” of Nintendo and switched to PlayStation. So the PS layout was hard coded into my brain for almost the whole decade. Then I switched to PC and it’s now the Xbox layout is in there. To this day I have to draw the PS layout on a piece of paper in front of me when I use emulation until I get used to it again. If I’m playing a N64 game you can map the buttons all you want that Z trigger is irreplaceable.
Could be worse, it could be Japan where the purpose of X vs Circle is swapped.
No it’s swapped in the rest of the world PlayStation was released first in Japan. So O for confirm is the OG layout. It makes sense in Japan since in Japanese writing you write down a Circle for Yes, OK or Good or an X for No or Bad.
As someone who learned on that, it is worse (having to switch one way or the other).
The only layout I hate is Nintendos. At least with Xbox and PlayStation it’s:
A = X.
B = O.
Y = Triangle
X = SquareWith 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 .
I don’t see it that way. I see south button means confirm, East means No. I get people grew up with the old Nintendo way, but for most people, where they are on the Xbox/PS layout is just better ergonomically.
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.
I mean… I was more talking about the four button standard diamond pattern… With different labels on each button; but okay.
The basic layout of the PS1 controller was a SNES controller with wings.
This.
The Playstation started as an SNES add-on.
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
There must be a stupid patent about an X button for every position on a game controller.
Honestly, I don’t even really know where they are unless I’m looking at them. The games that show all four face buttons and just highlight the one I need to push are the ones that really work for me.
