• fum@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    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.

    • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      16 minutes ago

      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.

    • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      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.

      • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        19 minutes ago

        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.