Random: Xbox Boss Complains About X Button After Being Handed PS5 Pad

I feel his pain, been playing the Yakuza games on the xbox, trying to play the rhythm mini-games, completely lost.

Modern media: How a joke gets a serious "complain" in headline because drama and clicks

Weyyyyyy! Haha push square!

KNOW your place Phil.....

Also goat'd sub header!

Xbox should've just gone with A, B, C, D. They just like to complicate things. Everybody knows it's PS1, PS2/3/4/5/6/7. But nooooo it's 360, One, OneX, Series S/X...sigh.

He's probably just shocked to see the letter X on a superior quality gaming product hahaha trololol etc

Back up, Phil! PlayStation was on the scene first! Not a bad joke, actually.

Try playing God of War or Days Gone on an Xbox Controller and seeing button prompts that are so foreign to a Sony game.

I mean, I know my way around all of the controllers, but it's certainly a weird adjustment when the X prompt shows up - I think I have accidentally pushed the A Button instead once or twice thinking about the "Cross" button where the game was asking for the "Square" button input by PlayStation standards.

Sometimes muscle memory fails you!

I'm kinda used to all the button layout for PS and Nintendo. Like if I'm playing on a switch, I'll know where all the buttons are automatically without having to look down on the controller, same on PS. But on xbox, I always press A whenever it says press X. Lol.

@TheArt Microsoft technically copied the button layout of the Dreamcast Controller - which was just a copy of the SNES layout (only with the A,B,X,Y letters reversed).

I have a Series X and a PS5, and what I usually do is play both for about six months out of the year-3 month game pass purchase and back to PS5. This is the hardest part-I have been mostly a Playstation guy since the PS1 days; my current Xbox is my first one. Every time I go on an Xbox run, I spend weeks pressing the A button when I am supposed to be pressing X. That button belongs on the bottom dang it!

Also, the red PS5 controller shown here is my favorite one!

and once he got his head around the cross button’s location, his mind was duly blown 😉

@Hundred_Hand_Slap Lighten up. I am sure you could run it better than him.

I'm very used to playing on a PlayStation or Nintendo controller (I grew up with them), but I always have to think for a second if I'm playing with my Xbox controller on PC.

I've played enough of all three that I'm usually fine with the button names themselves... but nonsense like putting the jump/confirm button on the right isn't ergonomical at all!

PS: Obligatory mention that the oldest PS1 manuals said that it's pronounced "EKS".

@Frmknst clicks on an article to complain about how said article only exists for clicks. My goot lort in heaven!

Not a big fan of Phil but this is actually pretty funny lol. Not really meant to be taken seriously

The worst is if you go from the Sony and the Xbox controllers to the Switch Pro controller as the forward and back buttons are reversed on the Switch pro controller so you keep going forward instead of backwards and vice a versa.

No problems for this call sign. A ps native but brain turns pc/xbox, Nintendo as soon as i boot up, just like my left foot goes to sleep when I get in a lazy car.

"The X is in the wrong place"

Now that he mentiones it, Xbox really is at a convention which showcases games

@OldGamer999 Hmm... Sounds similar to how I can't play any game without inverted y-axis. Nothing I hate more than when a game I really want to play doesn't give the option to invert.

Says the guy whose company had at least 2 standard placements for X before they built a controller and they chose neither.

Lies of p nah dog bethesda you bought is in the wrong place😃.at least the games are coming to PlayStation but even more is coming.word up son

dudes & dudettes be looking at their buttons... what are you, 4?
I know where they are, they can have ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs for all I know, wouldn't be able to tell you.
I just learn what each button (positionaly) does in the game and I don't even have a concept that this button is a, this b, x square, circle j**k.

It's actually kind of nice to see a little goofin' around playfulness with Phil Spencer here. No hostility between rival companies, just clowning on each other.

@OldGamer999 The transition between the Switch Pro controller and Xbox controller is definitely the worst. Why oh why did MS ever chose the same ABXY that the SNES used, but then put them all in different places? Such a pain!

As someone else said, Switch is the only issue for me where forward and back are reversed in menus etc!

If I've been on holiday and using my Switch for a week, then try to use my PS5, it's extremely irritating!

Otherwise I don't really care much for what is written on the buttons, as I think of them more by their location in the diamond.

Anyway Phil should have had a dig and asked if the battery would go flat before he'd had time to read all the symbols, as PS5 (and PS4) pad batteries are an utter joke.

They have about a tenth of the power of an Apple watch.

PS1 had the X button there before Xbox even existed lol

Playstation and any other controller isn't too bad.

Jumping between Nintendo and Xbox is a nightmare, though. Completely mirrored button positions.

Actually remapped the face buttons on my Steam Deck so that, when I see a button prompt, I press where the button would be on a Nintendo controller.

When Phil Spencer played Sly Cooper and Bentley said to "jump and press the circle button" he scratched his head and said that is where the B button should be

No joke I always need to take a minute or two whenever I pick up a Switch controller to get my bearings. I can switch between Xbox and PS just fine for the most part but with Nintendo's I press the wrong buttons constantly until I settle in.

@get2sammyb Kudos to the sub header 👍

It's X on Xbox and cross on playstation.

Are you even a real gamer Phil?

@Hundred_Hand_Slap its just a joke jesus

@Majin_Deicide its a joke

Idk but on Spyro 3 Hunter tells you to press the ex button. Many games on ps1 and ps2 told you to press the ex button. Now i call the square button the box button because some ps1 games called it the box button. They cant change these button names after 30 years.

@GamingFan4Lyf
The OG Xbox was just a Dreamcast 2

I always press "B" on Switch to accept/go forward when I haven't played for a while and vice versa for PlayStation 😂 I'm always having to look at where the lettered buttons are on Switch though.

I feel his pain.

Technically, it should be at the top, where triangle button is, as Nintendo kind of did it first
But he did make me laugh!

I could never get used to the Nintendo and xbox button layouts being reverses of each other 😂 that darn X button

@Korgon this is how I am, except I’m used to Nintendo so the Xbox controller trips me up

OMG I love the title and pic for this article! Well done Push Square. I literally burst out laughing when I saw it.

Xbox put the A, B, X and Y buttons in the wrong places after Nintendo already had them laid out in a certain way. It'd be great if we could lock all three platform holders in a room and say "none of you are leaving until you get this sorted out". 🤣

@Yaycandy Dreamcast was amazing.

Sword of Berserk needs a Remaster!

I was on the 360 back in the day as my main console and God of War 3 came out. I was all good until I had to do the music mini game and it went to hell on me. Muscle memory was a real sticking point. Not long after that, I moved back to PlayStation so I would have issues playing Xbox games for the same reasons now.

Well, the XBOX button placements of ABXY is really stupid in my opinion.
Again, the CEO of XBOX just keep being a fool and did nothing for their XBOX Series X/S.

The PS button layouts are already 2nd nature for me. Transitioning to the Nintendo controls of A,B,X,Y was quite a challenge during the DS/3DS era but I got used to them eventually.

That said, it was the Xbox control layout where I got very confused. I bought a used Xbox 360 last year to play some of its exclusives like Gears of War and Halo 4 and this was the moment I got confused by the button layout since I'm already very used to Nintendo's. It's a struggle for me especially during some QTE in certain games and I often get confused by it (e.g. when the game asks to press "X" only for me to press the "Y" button instead)

As for the confirm/cancel with the Nintendo, maybe because I'm already used to playing Japanese games before but my muscle memories already knows that I had to press the "A" button for confirm and "B" for cancel/return. Again, this is probably because I've been very used to the Japanese control layout (For PS "O" is confirm and "X" for cancel which I've gotten used to during the PSP era).

Great header! Phil's still one of the more tolerable big heads.

It's clearly a joke (he's mentioned actually playing Playstation games in the past). But I do feel compelled to mention that Playstation's X button predates the Xbox platform by 7 years.

I think he's got a lot more to worry about than that...

I don't mind Phil tbh, he's got a tough road ahead now the board is on his back to produce numbers.

@Frmknst 🤡🤡

@Ashina I've never gotten used to the Xbox controller. Usually, controls in games just map to where they should be, so I may not remember the placement of X/Y, but I can just use muscle memory from Playstation to play. That said, I've never gotten used to the offset sticks on an Xbox controller (I really wish Nintendo didn't copy that feature).

@theSpectre This is the kind of article that ends up revealing Phil's worshippers

It's actually all about your brain works.
I'll give you an example, my ex and I would play Playstation together and I would pay attention to watching her play and how her thumbs were fluid on the controller she knew where everything was without having to look down at the controller.

From time to time we'd change up to playing Xbox and if I told her to push the "A" button she'd look down and stare at the Xbox controller in order to find it. Since she wasn't use to the layout, I then thought I would try a different method with her and when she had to push the "A" button I would say to her "Playstation controller push X" and she wouldn't even look down as her brain already had the buttons mapped out in her brain. So that's how I would get her to push certain buttons on the Xbox controller and her motions became much more fluid.

It's interesting that the Xbox is participating in the Tokyo Game Show. I have some relatives in Japan (my wife is Japanese) and I always ask them about the Xbox's performance there. They live in Tokyo and one of my wife's cousins ​​lives in Hiroshima, and they all say that in Japan, the Xbox is sold by some stores as a "Blu-ray player."

The subtitle for this article should be in the Top 10 of 2024. 😁

I've almost exclusively alternated between Nintendo and PlayStation controllers all my life, so I don't nearly have as much "muscle memory" issues.

@Hundred_Hand_Slap Jimbo and Hulst say hi

@Hundred_Hand_Slap They didn't employ him for his sense of humour, obviously.

Was he playing Indiana Jones?

Like it or not, Nintendo were the first to have an X button.

Everyone else has simply copied their template..... admittedly Sony in particular have improved on it, The PS5 controller is probably my favourite controller of all time but it cannot be argued that all the modern controller lay outs owe their heritage to the Super Nintendo

Just worry about your failing xbox lol.

@kenniekayoz Is she actually your ex, or your cross?
(Sorry, couldn't help it.)

Always fun to act as an interpreter when diehard PlayStation players are trying to adjust to Xbox layouts!

To be honest this is pretty annoying, swapping between PS, XBox and Nintendo and getting prompts to press X when you've built up muscle memory for one position. Or even just how Nintendo tends to have confirm and cancel in the opposite config...

Oh yes,i am always confused where X, Y, A and B are in the switch controller. It's especially bad for those with Xbox controllers too cause it's the same letters in different positions.

Right that's the joke the whole site was made for, let's pack up.

⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️🅱️🅰️.

No X button needed.

He better get used to it as in 2025 he’s going to be playing a lot more Xbox games on PlayStation!

It is fun to see those, who cannot put sticks symmetrically, complain about place of button (btw try to press "-" button on Switch without moving left stick)

I think he feels depressed imagining milions of players are daily smashing X to the bottom.

I game on all 3 consoles and for some reason i don’t have an issue with the buttons. The only button that is hard to press is the PS symbol home button, that touchpad makes me dislike the PS controllers, they would be so much better without. 99% of the games i own only use that pad as a button. It’s so underused even articles on tech sites ask why they have it. Otherwise i like all the consoles controllers. This was funny with Phil and i am glad he and other kids are having fun, after all this is all this is intended for is fun. Not arguments and all the extra people be doing online.

Xbox controller has the left stick in the wrong position

@smoreon well played... 🤣

It is annoying. I have all three major systems and have to readjust if I have been camping on one system for a bit. By the time I get out of the Zelda fog next year I won't know how to hold a dualshock. Especially since I game less on Sony because I don't like symmetrical joysticks. At least they all have similar button count now. Back when they were all pretty different was a nightmare.

I'm not sure which company I want to be mad at. Nintendo's layout is the OG. Sony copied the OG...but them mirrored it everywhere but Japan (before finally mirroring it in Japan too now), Sega just went with the mirror. And then Xbox kind of inherited Sega. Nintendo's the strange one now, but only because everyone made their copies different from Nintendo's on purpose probably so they didn't get sued by Nintendo lol.

@GamingFan4Lyf @eltomo Yakuza launched first on PS, so some might say the PS layout is the "true" layout. But it's a Sega game that was originally meant for the Dreamcast, so I'd say the Xbox/Sega layout is the true one.

I remember buying a Dreamcast a few years back just to play Shenmue (before the PS4 versions came out), and getting completely discombobulated due to the Dreamcast controller using XAYB but with different colors than the Xbox pad. My brain hurt trying to do the QTEs and minigames

@AhmadSumadi I have a issue when you can't turn it off like in Jak and Daxter 2 the reason i will never finish that game.

@NEStalgia I thought Yakuza was born out of the work that was already done for the ill-fated Shenmue Online after Dreamcast died.

The more you know!

@get2sammyb this may be true but as a journalist you know better than anyone that "the headline is the story" in this click-bait drudgery we are all living in and you are feeding. Two comments above your reply is a user who is calling Mr. Spencer an imbecile, which is maybe a joke but probably because he didn't read your article, only the headline.

Being 56 years old and had a ps1, I always called it x. Atari then zx spectrum and then mega drive. A and b were the go to buttons. Well mega drive.

,

I like playstation symbol buttons, although maybe that's because after playing parappa the rapper on psone back then, I remember correctly where the x, square, triangle, zero, L1 and L2 button like the back of my hand, lol.

I often make mistakes by pressing B to confirm on my Switch

@TheArt Sony is just lazy and cant think of a new name. MS atleast tries, but isnt very creative. Nintendo does the best job as long as you ignore the wiis

For the buttons, ms just copied nintendo and sega. Then flipped them in order for whatever reason.

Honestly i dont even look at the controller when playing so im indifferent.

Gvien that Xbox uses the same controller symbols that Nintendo have been using the SNES, but shuffles them all around so all four of them in the wrong place. I'm glad he's confused he's by this. The nuber of times I've plugged my Switch pro into the PC (I don't have an Xbox controller) and just stared a button prompt for about a second before realising where it actually is, is painful.
I can just about cope with the different layouts of the Playstation controllers and the Switch/SNES one because most of the symbols are different. But nintendo controller to Xbox controller just feels like Microsoft were trolling with their controller layout.

Nobody has ever called X cross, if you know someone that does slap them from me

@NEStalgia Considering that even Nintendo themselves apparently realized their layout was nonsense from day 1, yet went with it anyway, I'd say to get mad at them.

To elaborate, Super Mario World used B as the jump button, seemingly acknowledging that it was uncomfortable to have A (the primary button) on the right. Same deal with F-Zero, which also broke the NES conventions by mapping accelerate to B. And these games were developed alongside the hardware!

To this day, most action games seem to put jump on the bottom (B for Nintendo) and attack on the left (Y), even on Nintendo systems, but it can vary.

@Member_the_game Not really. Sony were the first to have four shoulder buttons, and the first to have two analogue sticks. Both of those are equally important to modern controllers as four face buttons.

@Runex2121 You must've skipped your Marketing 101 class if you think Sony's naming convention for the PlayStation is "lazy".

@smoreon Lol true though. they of course did it to continue the NES positions for A and B, but I do recall B before A seemed stupid to me even on the NES!

@Wiceheid It was actually Sega, not Microsoft that came up with that layout. It's the Dreamcast controller layout. Microsoft just continued with the Sega design.

"Xbox Boss Complains About X Button After Being Handed PS5 Pad".

Should have read "Xbox Boss Jokes About X Button After Being Handed PS5 Pad"...

Cross button placement is fine as far as I’m concerned, although I wouldn’t mind offset analog sticks if I’m being perfectly honest…

For what its worth I thought it was good laugh Sammy, thanks!

But you did light the fanboy war beacon....

Wish I could figure out gifs on this site.... as LOTR " mountain fire beacons " seem appropriate

Some of these posts are, a microcosm of gamer nonsense

I’m surprised anyone owns Xbox when there isn’t a single advantage over PS5.

@Arnna
Cheaper games, better backwards compatibility?

@NEStalgia Yeah, B before A has always been a bit weird. I guess it's because the primary function is usually jump, and it feels better to have it to the right of the secondary?

Speaking of which, what I meant is that putting the B button sharply down and to the left of A is uncomfortable. I've always felt that B/attack should be higher than A/jump (a la N64), or at least roughly level (NES, GameCube).

Considering that Nintendo suddenly started mapping a lot of "A" functions onto B with their SNES games, it would seem that they agreed.

@MrPeanutbutterz

I'm just going to respectfully disagree with you

Have a great weekend

@smoreon all good points. I think back then they didn't think overly much about the labels, it was just randomly assigned, because they were matching arcade cabinets which at the time had game specific labels on the buttons. Though I still will never understand them making out backward. Sega was cheeky though with abxy vs bayx... Why nut abcd? The Genesis/MD controller was abc. I think it was a blatant console wars shot there

Meanwhile you got peeps like Sakurai who have all 3 consoles iirc and are open to all kinda controllers.

This gave me a good chuckle

@Arnna They're too similar but they have a ton of small differences that really add up to making then pretty different to use. Particularly for digital customers but that's most customers for both now. PS5 tends to feel dated and limited in terms of digital library management and features. But none of it is stuff that sells on a marketing brochure. It's just stuff if you own both you realize what works for your expectations better for different things. It's really a good platform that's been poorly marketed and lacks keynote feature that makes the masses take interest. So does PS5 really, but it already has the brand recognition so it wins every time.

@Anti-Matter

Microsoft adopted Sega's ABXY layout on the controller

@Arnna

Both PlayStation and Xbox have their advantages and disadvantages

Hasn't playstation told us it's a cross previously, although that's nonsense, it's an x.

@smoreon B before A on the NES controller makes perfect sense. Remember, the designers of the controller are Japanese- they read right to left. So to them, A is before B.

My main console is the Series X, and for my gaming PC I use an Elite Xbox Controller. My PS5 is used for those big Sony exclusives (so it's not getting a great deal of use recently, if I'm honest), with the last one being Stellar Blade. Thus, moving over to the PS5 every now and again after extended periods of playing on an Xbox controller can certainly be challenging at times, particularly when you are playing a game where rapid reflex button presses are concerned. I've been caught out many, many times when the X button is required on my PlayStation, and my brain goes into Xbox mode. Funny things is that if I play a game for a few weeks on my PlayStation, and then switch back to the Xbox, I have to consciously think about what buttons I press, as I readjust to where the buttons are.

You'd think after gaming on a PlayStation for 25 years, and an Xbox for 22 that I'd have got it right by now, but no, my brain is a place of continual confusion. Still, I'm probably going to move to having my PlayStation as my main next generation, and therefore maybe life will get a little easier... 🤪

PS controller came 7 years before xbox, so the latter should've follow the right position of X 😊

@DungeonMaster
Well, no wonder XBOX was actually Dreamcast 2 in XBOX name brand disguise.

"We imagine that could get quite confusing for casual players who aren’t intimately familiar with the layout of each controller."

Can also be confusing for me, having played games for 30yrs. I mostly play PS4, Switch & PC these days and use an 8bitdo Pro 2 on Switch & PC. Despite only going between 2x controller layouts, on the 8bitdo my brain still occasionally expects the X button to be on the left like an XB controller.
And then of course the brain needs to adjust each time for X to select or A to select, when I swap between systems.

I suppose technically I could use the 8bitdo's custom remapping to have B become enter, but that would likely just lead to further confusion. It's a shame that many games don't allow full custom button remapping, at best just a few layout options or at worst even options like invert Y axis unavailable.

Also given how the X button has moved around Nintendo controllers over the years, I guess that adds to confusion; top on SNES, absent on N64, on the right on GC, absent on Wiimote, then back to the SNES position on WiiU & Switch.
Whereas button layouts have been more consistent on the XB & PS controllers.

It's quite amazing how easily articles like this bring out rabid fanboys.

Did you know rabies causes hydrophobia? It's true. Learned that this week. And now we know why fanboys stink.

@Wiceheid Japanese is left-to-right, just like English.
There are cases where they read the lines/panels in a right-to-left order, like manga, as well as that old-fashioned vertical text you see on scrolls or whatever, so that might be where the confusion comes in. But even then, each line is read in what we'd consider the "normal" direction.

I find that I can switch seamlessly between PS and Xbox controllers as they game and button layouts are identical so once you play one of each it gets hard wired to your brain. It's the Nintendo press A rather than X/A that messes me up haha.

I find my biggest issue is switching between Nintendo and Xbox controllers more than anything as the on screen prompts for pressing certain buttons momentarily mess with my instincts. Never really had that issue with PlayStation controllers as it's shapes rather than letters and always confuses me why people think the X is a letter and not a cross when the other three are shapes. Although being around from the early days and actually reading what the symbols were I guess I assume others knew and the information wasn't lost to history.

Asif no1 mention the GameCube controller 😭that was the worst 😂

Good thing he didn't say it should be were the triangle is.

The button technically isn’t even pronounced ‘ecks’ like the letter, but is in fact the ‘cross’ button.

It is pronounced 'eks' like the letter since the first PS, as @smoreon said. Besides, your phonetics spelling is wrong. 😊

https://imgur.com/Rsiv7bx

I don't have trouble pressing triangle, circle and square, but the "X" button is confusing if you also play on Xbox and/or PC. It's even more confusing switching between Nintendo and Xbox/PC. If that wasn't enough, Nintendo changed the accept/jump button when Nintendo DS launched. I will never get used to that because it's not ergonomic, you have to slide your finger towards the edge and then push.

As a longtime Playstation user (going back to the original console in the late 1990s), I would tell him that the left analog stick on all of the Xbox controllers is IN THE WRONG PLACE.