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Does anyone prefer PS button controller symbols over A/B/X/Y or 1/2/3/4?

When i played on ps1 as a kid i just remembered the button locations using logic xP

Triangle tip points up so it's the top button.
Square is closest to the rectangular part of the controller. Circle is closest to the round part of the controller, the right side
And x remains left and is sad so he's a bit down


So stupid but it works xD
 
I prefer the Sony symbols the most because they are more iconic than letters and have never changed their position on the controllers.
 
m@cross said:
Not that it is particularly important, but I would think symbols translate more universally across languages, especially once you get outside of places that don't use the letters and numbers on other controllers. I also think the symbols themselves are more distinct in appearance when viewed as quick glimpses and thus better suited for on screen display.
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Agreed, plus... they just look snazzier, i don't want to be reminded of Algebra when i look at my freaking controller!
 
Yeah, I like the PS symbols a bit more than A/B/X/Y. Both are really easy to remember, but I find the PS symbols to be elegantly simple in way that A/B/X/Y are not.

I do have a slight problem the PS directional buttons, though, or rather the way they are (sometimes) depicted in QTE/context prompts. The problem is that the left directional button is shaped in way that seems to point to the right, the up button points down, and so on, sending mixed signals when a directional button is shown in isolation. (Some games instead use a prompt style where the entire d-pad is depicted with one of the buttons highlighted. That avoids the problem, so my beef is really more with the games than the controller.)
 
The PlayStation symbols ARE 1/2/3/4. Each symbol is a shape that requires a amount of lines to create it, from 1 to 4.

O is 1, X is 2, Triangle is 3, Square is 4.
 
To be honest, even after playing with Playstation for more than 15 years, sometimes I still forgot the X,O,Square and Triangle position. especially when playing with heavy QTE games . But that buttons are so iconic to Playstation. I wouldn't change it to ABXY or any other symbols. :p
 
yeah i'll go letters over playstation symbols. but i'll also go playstation symbols over numbers.

chrono trigger is impossible to get through at one point with the playstation controls unfortunately. that was frustrating.
 
Chaos2Frozen said:
Shapes are more universal, different cultures have different letters and numbers.

That means 1000 years from now, Aliens from Andromeda would be picking up Playstation over all other consoles.
Click to expand...

Odrion said:
The PlayStation symbols ARE 1/2/3/4. Each symbol is a shape that requires a amount of lines to create it, from 1 to 4.

O is 1, X is 2, Triangle is 3, Square is 4.
Click to expand...

If yall dont believe now.....yall better start believing.

Sony is the key to communicating with E.T.
 
Vital Tundra said:
abxy or the PS symbols is fine by me. Its Microsofts backwardness that bothers me. Nintendo had it first, and you go and switch it around.
Click to expand...

Yea, this. Every time I go to a friends house to play and we end up playing Xbox I kinda get confused and have to look at the controller.

Abxy>bayx
 
I prefer PS shapes, they are ingrained in my mind so whenever i pick up a different joystick i get pretty confused using it. X will always be confirm lol
 
I definitely prefer the PlayStation symbols. For me it's simpler to mentally apply shapes to buttons that have no outside context, rather than arbitrary letters/numbers.
 
I'm fine with either, as well. I do have to stop to think for a split second between Nintendo and Xbox controllers, though.
 
To me it is less about symbols and more about color. Its a lot faster for the brain to recognize green than a shape like square.

The dancing minigame in gta san andreas was super duper easy on xbox and kinda difficult on ps2 because of this.
 
They feel the same tbh. The only outlier was Xbox and its weird swaps (probably because of SEGA's influence).

The only problem I have with the symbols on PS is its non-standardized functions, especially the confirm and cancel. In Japanese games, O is ok, X is cancel (similar to standard A-ok, B-cancel). In Western/localized games, for some weird reason, they swap out this function (dunno if it still exist on PS4). Really annoying,
 
Vilam said:
I definitely prefer the PlayStation symbols. For me it's simpler to mentally apply shapes to buttons that have no outside context, rather than arbitrary letters/numbers.
Click to expand...

This is my case as well.

Doesn't help that my first nintendo device is a gameboy with only A and B button.
 
I do but only because QTE's get confusing going from Xbox to Nintendo as ABXY are in different places. There's no mistaking when a square, x, o, or triangle comes up.
 
NES BA is what I was first introduced to. SNES kept BA and added YX on top of it.There's nothing to get PlayStation symbols confused with but then Dreamcast came with AB and XY and Microsoft followed thereafter. Fortunately it's been enough time now that just by the feel, by the shape of whichever controller is in my hand I instinctively know what is in each of the the diamond's positions.

I can't hold a SNES controller or a classic controller and think that the bottom button is A. Too much pressing the button in the right position (A) to go forward.

With SNES and PS1 RPGs X and Triangle (the top of the diamond) had become interchangeable for some time.

Dreamcast fighting games will always have me thinking that the top buttons are X then Y whenever I'm holding that controller. These buttons are almost always to do something with the hands, punches, never kicks.

I do have to say that after SNES with Nintendo abandoning the diamond on consoles for 2 plus generations until Wii (and even then not as the main controller) and that time coinciding with Dreamcast, Xbox, 360, and 360 as PC controller I experienced the largest controller confusion with the Wii classic controller when Nintendo finally came back to the diamond.
 
CaptainSlow said:
Wow, no love for the O / U / Y / A button layout?

9200000019694350_2.jpg


/s
Click to expand...

Awwwww, the poor Ouya gets so much hate! I think the devs did a good job with what they had. I think people just had unrealistic expectations.
 
I have no problem with nintendo or ps controllers, it's the xbox that always confuse me, they should ditch the letters and just keep the colors, that way it would be easier to change between consoles and not get confused, specially with qte
 
As a non-native speaker the ABXY has always been confounding. It wasn't until I could dl ROMS that I was able to play classics like Super Mario World because the layout was just too difficult to adapt to. Playstation's devotion to other cultures is what has kept me a loyal customer.
 
Love my PlayStation symbols!

Septimus Prime said:
I'm totally used to them now. Triangle, circle, X (come at me, cross), and square are just as intuitive as A, B, X, and Y.

What really sucks is that Nintendo and MS transpose the positions of A and B, as well as X and Y. I'm more used to the Nintendo layout, so I make dumb mistakes on Xbox controllers because of that. Doesn't happen with PlayStation symbols.
Click to expand...

So much this.
 
Chaos2Frozen said:
Shapes are more universal, different cultures have different letters and numbers.

That means 1000 years from now, Aliens from Andromeda would be picking up Playstation over all other consoles.
Click to expand...

Letters are also shapes. If you are an alien (or a human oblivious to the latin alphabet), ABXY do not have any syntactical meaning - but they are still discernable symbols. To an alien, a triangle and an "A" might be equally unrecognizable.
 
Nope, the letters make a lot more sense.

Even Sony acknowledges this, otherwise they'd have used symbols for their triggers and sticks.
 
I prefer A, B, X, Y because they're easier to say and type but Sony's symbols make sense so I don't mind them at all.

For the rest of the buttons I strongly prefer MS though - left/right trigger and bumper make more sense than L/R 1 and 2.
 
I'm mostly fine with both, although:

- I find it painful to refer to playstation triangle and square buttons in text (e.g. faqs)

- I LOATHE the fact that Europe and US reversed the "OK" and the "Cancel" button, having "OK" on X and "Cancel" on O is stupid.

It's even worse when you play e.g. an european game on a JP console, since some questions are from the OS, some from the game, and the OK/Cancel button swap. For saving, OK / OK / Exit / Exit become X O X O. Doesn't make ANY sense.


And I still think the right-to-left bottom-to-top order Nintendo and many others use (and technically, Sony too, since O is a single curve, X two lines, triangle three lines and square four lines) is the right one :D It's one of the reasons I'm reluctant to buy MS consoles (colors too) and even sometimes PC games.
 
Jarronimoe said:
I like the symbols they chose, but only the positions really matter.

Separately, A & B make sense and separately, X & Y make sense; together they don't. (Why not Y & Z?)

Numbers would be weird though, and I have no better suggestions.
Click to expand...

A, B, X, and Y are the most commonly used letters in math problems, that's why.
 
I prefer the PlayStation styled icons.

Plus the symbols all represent numbers anyway, so there's this little touch of genius design in there.

Circle - one line.
Cross - two lines.
Triangle - three lines.
Square - four lines.
 
glaurung said:
I prefer the PlayStation styled icons.

Plus the symbols all represent numbers anyway, so there's this little touch of genius design in there.

Circle - one line.
Cross - two lines.
Triangle - three lines.
Square - four lines.
Click to expand...

Cool - I never even thought of that.
 
Square X Triangle Circle is way more iconic than anything their competitors have come up with. Add in the colour-coded aspect and you've got the definitive button layout.
 
protomouse said:
Letters are also shapes. If you are an alien (or a human oblivious to the latin alphabet), ABXY do not have any syntactical meaning - but they are still discernable symbols. To an alien, a triangle and an "A" might be equally unrecognizable.
Click to expand...
To an alien a triangle/circle etc is a concept of geometry

OT: Used to the Sony/Nintendo due to how long theyve been around and now MSs due to PC gamepad use. Still find the reversal of BAYX/ABXY confusing. - surprised MS didnt adopt their own standard rather than just adopting Segas.

ps3ud0 8)
 
I can accept all button layouts but for some reason I can never remember the Xbox layout (position / colors) even tho I also own a 360.
Every other layout is fine but the xbox layout feels just confusing in every possible way

Edit: also the X button shouldn't be on the left! Stop it!
dhzii6vr.jpg
 
They're all 100% interchangeable for me. I don't know why I've never gotten confused playing pc games with a ds4 and some games use ps button prompts and others use xbox ones, yet I've never confused the X buttons.
 
How are symbols any easier to remember than letters? idk. I think any controller takes you adjustment until you're used to it and then it's fine like, forever. If you told me which button was A or B on a nintendo controller I would have to think about it, because it goes right to left and the buttons tend to look similar. On xbox the colors are a major factor as well though and those are just as iconic as symbols, AND they have the letters. The playstation symbols have the colors but being hollow the color isn't as integral.

Edit: And as someone that's been gaming a LONG time, when the PS1 came out all I remember was people saying they hated the symbols because they made no sense and weren't intuitive like letters :P Kids are just used to them now, which is the hurdle with any 'new' controller layout.
 
I grew up with Nintendo, but I'm better with the PlayStation shape layout. Microsoft running counter to Nintendo's layout confuses me every time now. I'll be playing on an Xbox or PC, and when Y shows up on screen, I end up pressing X because my Super Nintendo muscle memory kicks in faster than my brain saying "Xbox layout!".
 
I dont think it matters what is on buttons.

Cant remember ever having to look down at any controller to check buttons other than when I first got a brand new one.

Only slight confusion I get now is using a DS4 on PC but even then its fine
 
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