Ever Wondered What the Playstation Controller Button Icons Mean? - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 26 August 2010 / 19,387 Views
No matter which is your side in the everlasting console warfare, you are familiar with them: The X, the Circle, the Triangle and the Square. These iconic shapes are featured in all of the PlayStation controllers so far, but... What do they mean?
Teiyu Goto, the man responsible for designing all the three PlayStation consoles and their controllers, decided to spill the beans on an interview with Famitsu (Whole deal in 1UP). He claimed it was "pretty tough" to come up with them, and here's how it went:
"Other game companies at the time assigned alphabet letters or colors to the buttons. We wanted something simple to remember, which is why we went with icons or symbols, and I came up with the triangle-circle-X-square combination immediately afterward."
"I gave each symbol a meaning and a color. The triangle refers to viewpoint; I had it represent one's head or direction and made it green. Square refers to a piece of paper; I had it represent menus or documents and made it pink. The circle and X represent 'yes' or 'no' decision-making and I made them red and blue respectively."
He also says: "Getting to use such simple symbols in a design is an extremely rare opportunity, and it was really a stroke of luck to me."
And now these "simple symbols" will be forever engraved in gaming history. Congratulations, Teiyu Goto, for your successful design.
More Articles
People still don't realize In Japan they read things in reverse direction to some western nations? That's a bit too sad for words.
and way too much trolling in this thread, especially in the first page or so, doubt action will be taken tho
MozBlue : well, in most japanese games X and 0 commands are inverted compared to western versions...
I remember that for fighting games like KoF and SF zero
I made a topic about "controller button naming" something like that a couple of month's back. Can't find it on my history, since I stopped coming to this site until now, since the new layout confusses me. Anyways, I still think that these 4 symbols are terrible and should have used something more logical and better like letters that other game manufactures have used.
Also I agree with the quote "and now these 'simple symbols' will be forever engraved in gaming history." I don't want to be rude, but it should be engraved in gaming history as worst symbols ever. Of course I could have misunderstood and the quotres around simple symbols were meant to be a sarcastic thing, lol.
Thought it worth noting that from a Japanese point of view the O & X make alot of sence as they use a O instead of a tick for yes/correct & like the western world use X for no/wrong.
Maybe the western controllers should of had a tick in place of the O.
And of course the way around they are reflects the B - A layout of the nintendo controllers
Cant say I ever wondered.
...what wrong with letters?
look at these playstation haters. you idiots cant remember 4 buttons? right
Thats kinda neat
Wait people actually look at the controller while playing? I think this. was meant for developers not gamers. silly Sony haters being petty. its 4 buttons and I know most of you are pretty intelligent, so don't act like they gave you trouble.
I'll take ABXY over the symbols any day.
Yeah, I always get screwed up when switching between US playstation games and JP playstation games between the buttons are switched. For the US games, "X" is accept/ok and "O" is cancel. For JP games "O" is accept/ok and "X" is cancel. -_-
Also, I had SO much trouble in RPG at first on the PS1 because on the SNES X (top-right) always was the menu but on PS1 it was almost always the top-left!
Also, this cause me to curse the PS1 controller, on SNES, accept ALWAYS was A (bottom-right) and B cancel (bottom-left) but it was the opposite on the PS!!!
I never could remember this controller!! I just can't remember where X is or whatever so in QTE I'm doomed! :P
I will always have the Y-X, B-A of the SNES in my head so for me the Xbox is already way better even if they are the other way around (X-Y, A-B).
I guess it's simply because I've started on a NES so B-A was already hard-wired in my brain. Then the Y-X simply got added.
@JGarcia
The descriptions were not meant to be used to help remember where the buttons were located. I suppose they were more meant for use to help developers decide which buttons to designate for which actions.
X can mean confirm and is used more often than circle. When you're a kid you circle the things you select but after about middle school you generally check or "X" things you wish to select. I've almost never seen circle used as yes or confirm other than when I was a little kid. That is only for the US though, I don't know about other countries.
That's some pretty nice explanations....but....all it really does is create difficulty when you play multiple consoles. You press a 'cancel' button on one, but it really means confirm on the other. Really keeps you on your dam toes..
Quite frankly amazed at the people that never got "used" to it. It's 4 buttons, I was used to it probably after an hour or so.
@Beuli2
are you really serious???
Sony will never just say they just batlantly copied the magic of Kamek in Super Mario World, so they just made this silly fairytale about "yes", "no" and "direction" and whatever to mask the truth.
I don't know why in West, the X is for yes and O for no.
I'm glad that my console is from Hong Kong, where the O is for yes and X is for no.
the only button that has a good description was the triangle button.."refers to viewpoint" so its on the top of the controller...the other ones don't make sense for button layout to me any way... i mean i don't have a problem with the controller...just the descripiton of the buttons. like am i suppose to remember that the square button is on the left because it represents a piece of paper and is pink? i dunno maybe im just missing something..which is probably the case.
I found trying to remember what button is where was tricky. I never got it for years until I came up with a memory trick to do so:
triangle points to the front so it is on top. X is at the base. circle is next to the X. Across from the circle is a square "opposite" in form type to a square.
It didn't flow naturally for me at all.
Does Nintendo fans jokingly claiming these shapes are from Mario really offend you THAT much? Really? Seriously..?
One thing i actually like about PS, ill never miss those buttons letters can be hard to remember when playing games like Mario Party, but this! its plain genius, awesome work on there Sony!
a circle generally denotes "accept" while an X denotes "decline"
... Yet it's the exact opposite for playstation controllers. Very intuitive indeed! lol
Interesting tidbit of info, never thought about it before. For me, personally, I never, ever got used to those buttons. I'm good with Nintendo and xbox controllers, but no matter how many times I play PS games over the years, I never get used to it. And I've owned a PS1 and PS2.
Holy crap, i've never really wondered about it. Mind blown.
"Everyone knows that this symbols come from Mario games. More bullshit from Sony ppl... They will never learn. Worst game industry of all."
Patiently awaits for the ban
I swear I thought the xbox fans were bad, but you Ninty fans take the cake. I know they dont have alot of worthwhile games on Wii but there must be a better use of your time. Go play Galaxy 2 again or one of the 3rd party's game you refuse to play
Nice article. Makes so much sense.
But bad Nintendo fans... stop to destroying here.
Cool i grew up with those symbols! MGS <3
Everyone knows that this symbols come from Mario games. More bullshit from Sony ppl... They will never learn. Worst game industry of all.
When playing other systems I always have to convert buttons in my head from circle, triangle, square and X. Kind of like language translation.
Also, everything Carl said. Grow up nintendo fanboys.
@The Ghost of RubangB Well a cross means bad in most cultures... I'd rather get a circle on my test then a cross...
I do however wish they had kept them universal... I got a japanese import PSP which was fine untill I also got a PS3... When using remote play it got so confusing going from Japanese controls to West controls
Wow. More Nintendo fan bullshit?
Take it elsewhere. And as for Sony never being able to beat Nintendo... Where the hell were you the past 2 generations?
OT: Good to hear. Pity people jump straight to the "Copied Nintendo!" bullcrap.
NO, these symbols are originally from Mario. If anyone remembers that little wizard dude that uses the wand and flies on the broom, he makes a trail of the X, circle, square, and triangles. Sony took those symbols from the Mario games.
@nintendo_fanboy: Damn you beat me to it :P
And while I'm no fan of the Playstation controller and I have a hard time remembering their button positioning, it's good to see that they actually have a reason for the symbols.
I prefer letters, as it's more universally agreed among developers and users that A = Accept, B= Back/Cancel. On Nintendo platforms, the only games that I've seen break this tradition are games/franchises that made their names on Playstation.
I like theses symbols : this is the easiest way to play madden and sports games...
Like most i knew about the X & O
^ for view point is actually smart, most games i played indeed used that button to
change the camera viewpoint.
[] also been used alot for menus
Been gaming since the Atari days and i have to say 4 symbols represent gaming to me
@hatmoza
lol, me and all the people i know do the same.
One time like i was press "Y" and he was like "huh?"
This is not true. everyone knows that these are just the simbols Kamek throws at you in Super Mario World, and using these symbols is nothing short of a secret message that Sony will never be able to win a fight against Nintendo ;-)
I never really liked the symbols. I never thought of them as symbols, instead I just remembered positions. Letters or numbers make a lot more sense to me for some reason.
I always thought O and X were for accept and cancel. Yes and No, I was pretty much right.
It's really inconvenient that some games will use O and X as accept and cancel and then other games will use X and O as accept and cancel. It's like some companies want to swith it on us while others want to keep it the same. FF7 and FFT for example. It's O and X, but then the rest of them are X and O.
in japan it is circle that is used for the okay or yes and the x as the cancel or no button, and now when i play an old rpg it always throws me off :P
idk why we get em switched around, and i think its even the same for the square and triangle button there squares often the menu and over here its more often triangle
i've always knew about the X and O , since in the japanese games the O means Okay and the X means Cancel, however in the west its otherwise.
and come to think of it, a lot of games have square as the menus selecting button.
I think that's really great design philosophy for the buttons. I wonder why the hell they waited so long to tell us all?
@Evocation, X always means bad in Japan. They'll even cross their arms to make a big X when warning you not to do something. In fact, it's a common nerd joke that that's the reason why nobody in Japan buys the XBox.
Even when I'm playing Xbox, I refer to the buttons to my friends as if they were Sony Formatted. "Push Circle!" "Where the hell is Circle!?" XD
Didn't/don''t Japanese games often have X and O the other way around though? And wasn't triangle on alot of games the menu button...
cool
I actually have wondered this before... Makes sense. Don't get why square is pink, though. Everything else makes sense.
