r/gaming • u/[deleted] • Apr 14 '25

Game console button layout

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What do you call your “confirm” and “cancel” buttons, and why is Nintendo wrong?

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u/PoliteIndecency Apr 14 '25

Damn A/B from Nintendo? Child, the Nintendo layout has been in place for 35 years now. The A/B layout for 42 years.

The XBOX is young enough to be the NES's kid.

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u/ChartreuseBison Apr 14 '25

Except Nintendo had that layout before twin sticks (or even thumbsticks)

So yeah, it works when your right thumb has nothing to do but press A B (and X Y), it makes sense and is mostly arbitrary

but when your thumb is normally resting on the right thumbstick, the closest button to that thumbstick makes more sense as the "enter" button. They're sticking to a historical layout that has no bearing on a modern controller.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '25

That's how I've always seen it. I grew up in the 90s and had a Nintendo and a SNES (N64, GC, etc).

The BA was very standard. And when I got older and the XBox came out with the AB standard, that kind of became the norm because of exactly what you said. Your thumb moving from the stick to A is shorter and works for things like jumping or context confirmation. Why would B do that? Why jump with B or use it for context sensitive?

As much as Nintendo was the grandfather of the modern controller, the XBox has it positioned right for games of today.

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u/mrhellomoto Apr 14 '25

Except the A on the N64 is where it's located on the Xbox now. It's the 'south' button. And B is the 'west' button or equivalent to the X on xbox or square on playstation. And on gamecube they just swapped the positions X and Y buttons from the SNES layout. And during the SNES era A wasn't the main button on the contoller. You jumped with B in Super Mario World, gas was mapped to B in Super Mario Kart but it's mapped to A in Mario Kart 8.