Poll: Sony Says the X Button Is Pronounced 'Cross', But What Do You Call It?

BULLSH*T

Well I feel stupid. I've been calling it 'times'.

I call it "ex" because it's an X... not a cross. We are the many....we decide!

I've been calling it the X button for over 20 years. I'm not changing it now.

Of course it's cross. The origin of O and X are the Japanese symbols for incorrect (X) and correct (O) which are cross and circle symbols, not letters. That is also why O is confirm on JP PlayStations (and used to be on western ones decades ago)

I've heard this blasphemy before. I don't care PlayStation is wrong, it's X. Hopefully one day they will get on the right side of history lol

Its obviously an upside down cross on an angle, then up top a zoomed in pentagram, to the right one of the 7 circles of hell and to the left, big fish little fish cardboard box

Facts don't care about your feelings. The puritans may have won this battle, but the war goes on.

NEVER!! It always be "X" for me.

Uh...crosses don't look like the letter X. The fact that both lines are of equal size makes this inaccurate outside of Japan.

I feel like I need to say something. It's X.

@kyleforrester87 Yes. I agree it must be either X or Derek, but nothing else.

I thought that a cross was something that made-up guy's, from made-up religions, get crucified upon?

@TowaHerschel7 I can't quite tell what side you're on?

i always called it cross because that's what it was called and that's what it is and besides calling it "X" doesn't make sense with the rest of the buttons, you don't call Circle "O" do you or call any of the others after letters so why that one?

the only reason it's now so well known as "X" is because we dumb westerners couldn't tell that it was a cross

oh and by the way it's not a Japanese cross it's a greek cross as in all the arms are of equal length

@kyleforrester87 @LostInLift
Dereck for the win! It just makes sense.

@LN78 (In a Homer voice)... Mmm, Spam.

By the time I knew it was cross, I was too used to "ex" to change. A lot of games called it the X button too, as in saying "ex". Am I supposed to go back and correct them?

Bentley: Press X to jump.
Sly: Don't you mean "press cross"?
Bentley: Since when did we become a church?

@Quintumply lol

I've always hammered X in my Rockstar games.

@manu0
Exactly. Nintendo still use that button layout, with the right most button being "confirm" and the lower one being "cancel/back"

Are you saying the Δ button isn't called Delta?

@manu0
'symbols, not letters'
I can kinda believe that, as I don't know many people who refer to the circle button as a letter 'O' (although I refuse to call the 'X' button, a cross). However, the Japanese aren't renowned for their command of the English language, e.g. 'All your base are belong to us'.

Who's Derek?

https://youtu.be/bClTLsxJkog

@get2sammyb
Thank god you weren't called pushx instead. It'll always be pronounced ex in my household.

I don't care. I'm still calling it X. Even considering the "symbols, not letters" thing, I've never in my life referred to an X-shape as a "cross"

I guess that makes sense if all the other buttons are symbols, but I will still call it x. I've always called it x. Apparently a lot of us thought that too, according to the poll.

Well, it's not the first time a twitter representative has made a mistake.

Cross is the proper name.
X is the slang name.

So if X is a cross does that mean the circle is a nought, like noughts and crosses?

I call it ‘X’, but I always thought it was cross.

The face buttons are shapes not letters.

Press ‘X’ to pay respect.

Cross Ban me i'll game on thee Cross box then xD

Pushcross for cross box news lol

I call it "Croix" because I'm French, I think nobody calls it "X" here in France.

@kyleforrester87 I shall call my X button Kyle, in your honour.

only 13 % of pushsquare visitors are intelligent

Nope. It's ex.

Jdhrhfbf

I've never thought about that. I'm quite sure I've been calling it x. It makes sense to be called cross, since the others are symbols, not letters. But on the other hand it doesn't look like a western cross.

All those cross play fanatics 🤨

It's clearly the "X button."

Also, Pluto is a planet, and Aeris will always be Aeris to me!

Obviously it's always been officially called Cross, but normal people call it x because its easier and rolls off the tongue.
I call the A button on xbox x as well and the x on xbox I call square. I bought it I will call it what I want.

a cross is a horizontal line crossing a vertical line
The shape on the controller is as X as one sees on alphanumeric keypads.
Playstation UK is categorically wrong and get an X for their errors

If we're going to call it "cross" let's at least turn it upright and elongate the vertical line to make it more Biblically representative

Sorry, no, most sane people would call it by its correct name which happens to be 'cross'. It take 5 seconds for an intelligent individual to understand the other three buttons are shapes/symbols, so why would you even consider the last one wasn't? The Nintendo controller doesn't go A, B, Y, 9 does it? No, it's alphabetical like the Xbox controller. Factor in decades of common knowledge regarding this concept and you're left with the only logical understanding that anyone calling it 'X' is simply uneducated.

I have always called it X, I personally don't think I have heard anyone call it cross before, but it would not surprise me.

Always been an X to me and everyone around me. So it will never be anything else, no matter what. Might as call circle button ball.

About time people knew the truth!!... Though I called it the letter X as many others here xD

It's always been X to me and it will continue to be X. If they want me to call that a cross then I'm gonna call the square a diamond that let itself go and got stuck 45 degrees on it's side.

Also if they want me to pronounce a GIF as JIF then change the word graphic to jraphic.

You say it like that and a burning stake is the only place you deserve.

I call it X but of course I've always known they're all symbols: a pyramid, a planet and a window.

What??? I have been calling them:

Pyramid
Round
Cross
Box

You say cross, I think Church. You say (letter) X button. I think controller. In the end no matter what name you give it, it's still the bottoms input control button.

To me, all the face buttons are shapes, not letters.

It's always seemed weird for only one button to be a letter ("ex") while the other three are shapes.

I called it X for short but always knew it was cross which makes sense to be honest, now why is this such a big deal you can call wherever way you like just remember the real name

@nathanSF 'a cross is a horizontal line crossing a vertical line'
So what are the X crosses of the Scottish and U.S. Civil War Confederate flags called? It just gets more confusing. I'll get me coat.

The + = cross, x = ex But chances are the + would be called plus not cross.

I feel betrayed. Sony, apologize now.

What do I call it? X What makes sense among the shapes? Cross

Otherwise it would be Triangle, Square, O (letter), X (letter)

An X by any other name is still an X.

I wanna know where the 13% of "crossers" live....gotta be a regional thing or specific part of the world. I know nobody in the states call it cross. But since everything is off the table now Im going with box, dunce cap, the noise ET made when he phoned home and ......X

@manu0 If we're honoring the original Japanese intent, we should be calling O and X maru and batsu respectively.

I'm not listening to what some random employee manning the Twitter account says. It's ex, round, box and tent.

It’s always been X to me since the PS1. Say “press the cross button” out loud... it just doesn’t sound right at all, in fact it sounds wrong.

At the time of typing this 888 people have voted with 88% in favour of X, the other 13% GTFO
@Quintumply Ban Hammer time! 🔨

I know its a 'Cross' to go with all the other Shapes - Square, Triangle and Circle - so cross makes perfect sense. With the Xbox though, its 'X' to go with all the letters they use (A, B & Y).

As an Xbox gamer too, it can get confusing when someone says press 'X' instead of press 'Cross' as the positions are different on each controller. Its not an issue when I play a game on a PS and QTE for example shows the 'Cross' to press but more if I am playing in a party and someone says 'press X'.

At the end of the day though, does it really matter what its called. Does it matter if Sony gamers also want to call it 'X' instead of Cross. It only matters of you are communicating with another gamer and as long as they understand which button is 'X' or 'Cross', then it doesn't matter at all...

Arrogant Sony is back going into next gen 😂😂😂 what they drinking over there. Its X and i wont be told otherwise

I've always called it X. Cross sounds religious.

Sony’s logic fails, because the other buttons are shapes, where the lines enclose the shape.
The “cross” would only be a “cross” to me if it had lines enclosing an actual “cross”.
But it’s not, therefore X.

Press Cross To Pay respects.

Good job you didnt name the site Push X.

To be honest, sounds like one of them naughty sites.

Delta
Omicron
Chi
d'Alembertian

Thar is PSUK so it is not official LOL.

Cross baby, all the way. If I get banned then so be it. It’s been a good run and you have to live or die by your principles.

@BAMozzy - i never understood why some gamers shout out which buttons to press, you don't even need to play on xbox (which i don't) for it to be confusing. when i played destiny, people would shout out to press R2 or whatever when i had the shield on atheon VoG encounter, or the sword in crota.. which was incredibly confusing because i did not use the default controls. i had trigger flipped the shooting to R1/L1 (because R2/L2 sucks for shooting imo), and swapped left and right, so their R2 was really L1 for me! it's much easier/less confusing to just say what action to do - jump, shoot, slam, whatever.

Its easy this is a cross ➕ this is a x ✖️
Dispone what they said it’s a X

Ill still call it X. I call the options button start so not getting me changing the name of the buttons.

@Hengist Actually, there are indeed X-shaped crosses. St. Andrew's Cross, for example, was shaped this way. That's why so many flags, especially European or European-inspired have that X shape in them.

In Brazil, Circle button is more often called Bolinha ("little ball") - people grew up calling it that and well, that's what it is. We also call X by the letter instead of cross (which sounds terribly wrong btw).

I dont care what anybody calls it for me its a X.

X Till I die. Square, Triangle, Circle, X

Heck why can't x be a cross! Don't we live in a crazy world where a man born with genitals and sperm can call themselves a female?! Cross batsu yeah!

I always said 'ex' and 'oh' for those two.

I've known for a long time that it's cross, but I always say X. Also, any stand-alone X in a Japanese game title is cross, like Pokemon X.

Should the game "noughts and crosses" now be referred to as "circles and crosses" or "noughts and exes"?!?

Also I say "press" instead of "push".....sorry pushsquare but I would press square on my controller.....

Are we really listening to the unpaid intern manning Playstations Twitter feed?

It's X (ex) not † (cross)

eX of course! Cross are the straight lines ( † ). We are not Japanese...

X of course, like the letter. It's not a freaking cross! (I've been saying x since the PSone days, would be too difficult to change that now).

I always say ‘X’ but ‘Cross’ obviously makes sense given the other buttons!

It’s almost the opposite of ‘noughts & crosses’...

I wonder if some call the circle button ‘naught’?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2EcTTAofO98&feature=youtu.be&t=0115

Bentley knows where it's at.

So here's a thing, I've always called it 'Cross'. As in Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square. It's never really occured to me that it was anything else. Like the other three sacred symbols, it's a shape, not a letter.

When I heard Shuhei Yoshida correct Greg Miller on the old Podcast Beyond by saying 'It's not an 'X', it's a Cross' I had it confirmed that I was right.

Perhaps I've been sheltered, but saying 'ex' over 'cross' just doesn't make sense to me at all.

a ✖️b is the cross-product of two vectors.

I don't take much stock in what some lowly employ who has access to the PlayStation Twitter account has to say. Unless it's Ken Kutaragi saying its "cross", then I won't believe you.

It's X.

@CaptFloofers What about Street Fighter X Tekken? Or Project X Zone? Or Namco X Capcom? Or Cross Edge? Or Balzblue Cross Tag Battle? Do you say it X or Cross, is it an X or a cross in the logos of the last 2? It's cross and you know it.

@Nintyfan And it obviously takes a vastly superior intellect to be able to gauge people's educational ability by their view of expressing a shape's name. Or perhaps not since to a lot of well educated people that shape is correctly termed a saltire, or a diagonal cross, but not just cross. The shape is also still called X, not cross, when used as a way to affirm something, ie. marking a ballot paper or, perhaps, to some people, affirming you want to bypass the start screen of a game. It's not dumb, it's a point of view. Thinking you're superior to other people based on their pronunciation of X, well now, that's really dumb.

Bit late to the party on this one, now having read the Playstation UK twitter contribution two things come to mind...
1) Press "X" to doubt...
2) This is the same UK/EU social team that recently did a blog post on FF8 remaster being the FF7 Remake!
Little wonder this storefront never seem to manage questions on games missing release dates/never coming out!

This is xtremely trcircleubling.

@Nyne11Tyme I’m from the UK and to me it’s triangle circle x square. I don’t no where the cross comes from but it sounds awful

It's always been 'cross' to me, because they're symbols. not letters. They have actual meaning in Japan.

Had this discussion somewhere a while ago, and found these links at the time...

https://www.technologizer.com/2010/08/26/why-playstation-controller-buttons-are-symbols-not-letters/

http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Playstation_symbols

Square, Triangle, Circle, X..
Makes no sense, its always been Cross
They are symbols

I used to call 'Square' "box" and 'Circle' "Oh". I am reckless I am a terrorist and will continue to call 'Cross' "Ex".

I call 'Triangle' "Equilateral".

In protest we should start calling the circle button, the "O" button and the square button, the "box" button.

No, it’s X, not cross. I’ve never called it that and never will. Heck, I’m pretty sure when PS2 said which buttons to press they said X. @Dermeister brilliant comment also referred to that.

To be honest it's both depending on the way it's being usedbut in the PlayStation It's X, like X marks the spot, pirates don't go "cross marks the spot". And playstation UK can go jump. The only person who has the deciding vote is its creator.....

@ZeroAbbadon Good point, I do pronounce "Cross" for those titles. However, I was told of those pronunciations straight away, and not after 20+ years of calling it something else.

I kinda knew it wasnt officially the "ex" button but Its still weird to have it confirmed. Like I've never met a single soul who actually called it cross. And I'm pretty sure I've pplayed a few games where the tutorial voice over would tell me "press the ex button to jump. You can also press it to interact with objects and talk to people" or something along those lines

@Quintumply last comment before I get banned for voting logic... I mean cross.
Buttons are shapes so it is logical to call it a cross. Although I have been calling my controller buttons ABXY and never bothered about that ugly symmetrical controller (asymmetrical is the way to go and Nintendo got it right 18 years ago, hopefully Sony will get it right with the PS5) until recently since I didn't own a playstation.
Well... I guess this is goodbye. If you didn't have a reason to ban me before, now you do with my Dual shock criticism. I'll miss you guys!

Edit: I had to give the closest answer to reality. I actually call it "croix" but that's because I like to pretend I speak another language.

❌Cross
◼️Box
🔺Pyramid
⭕️Ring

Duh! Where are you people from?!

It's always been X since PS1

@RogerRoger I love the show. 😃

The tv show with Morgan Webb and Adam Sessler was called X-Play, not Cross Play. X Games are not called Cross Games.

Actually the symbol being discussed here is the multiplication symbol.

Been telling people for years, it’s DJCrossfire.

Cross
Box
Round
Pyramid
You're welcome.

Always called it X, but I much prefer cross, goes better with the other shapes instead of mixing in one letter!

I call it X, but u should've known this. U had 2 have seen Street fighter cross (x) Tekken & all those games that have that in their name. I always want to call it street fighter times Tekken, lol.

If they really wanted to avoid confusion, they could have put it in the shape of a cross (north to south line with a perpendicular East to west line "crossing" it).

@kyleforrester87 when are you going to not win a comments section? 😂
I laughed out sooo loud when I read the Dereck thing 😂😂😂

Er.... if it was a cross then wouldn’t it be a +?

On topic: I’ve always called it “ex”, and everyone I’ve heard here in Italy also calls it “ex”, but logic says shapes go with shapes and letters with letters.

Also, I’d like to remind the “ex elitists” that a lot of different types of crosses have existed since way before Christ, so yeah, an X is called St. Andrew’s cross and it’s your bad for not knowing it, so don’t spout out false statements.

@Dodoo nope, a plus is a plus.
A Christian cross is similar but the southern arm extends further than the other 3.

X button, always X button.

This is an outrage. Next gen I’m getting a cross box

It’s the B button. The X button is the top one.

@MrGawain totally agree, that’s how it was in the beginning, even though a lot of people nowadays think Nintendo is the odd one out 🙄

I Denmark it is called ‘kryds’ which means cross 😊. Absolutely no one in my country calls it x

well every time i press it it gets cross with me

@FullbringIchigo I have spoken to several people in the past who call the circle button "O" 😜

We all call it X but we should never forget it's always been cross. Tru fans should know this

Press 'X' to start.

The the OOOOOOO button.

It's most definitely the multiplication symbol.

I will call it cross in my videosfrom now on 🤔😅

It's also Russian letter which pronounced as "he". If you ever noticed washing instructions on your clothing... Why do they put "jump" on a washing machine symbol? Or.. X on an iron... Or... Jerek 🤣

I would note that this is the UK account making a global statement.

Internally, US PS still uses [X] while UK PS refers to it as [CROSS]. This is one of those cases that highlights the difference in US vs UK english. US does not have an offical language, while the UK does. Meaning that while you may see examples of UK spelling in US releases (like Worms), you can be fined if you try to release a title that uses "localization" instead of "localisation".

Jesus has entered the chat.

A + sign is a cross.

@Mince look at you. Hahah

@Mince why are you crying? Breath child

@Mince Tissues in the bathroom.

@Mince you took this article WAY to seriously my child. Look at you. Wow

@Mince it's ok you call it cross. Breath.

@Mince I call it a plus sign turned on it's side. That gonna trigger you too?

@Mince do you need a hug?

@gaboice That's a plus and an X.

No one calls it the 'cross' button. NO ONE. Just stop Sony. It's 'X', it's always been 'X'... What's next, the 'zero' button? The 'pyramid' button?? Things haven't been this bad since that time they changed 'start' to 'options'. Oy...

By that logic the Xbox and Nintendo face buttons are A, B, Y, and Cross.

It's 'ex', ok?

I call it the B button

Ok since I see it's a popular topic, I'd say I'm more likely to buy an Xbox One Cross than say cross when I press X to continue.
Haha

The bottom one.

@Gremio108 well done!

It’s an X, like a former girlfriend. And it’s an O, as in “OMG, I can’t believe anyone would call it a cross.”

I guess I'm the odd one out here. Many years ago I spent a few months doing voter awareness in a newly democratic land and over and over spoke about putting your cross in the box and when doing voter registration saying you can just mark with a cross for a signature for those who could not right. About the same time as the PS1 released or at least I got mine just after I returned. Yep so for me it's always need a cross....... Please don't hate or ban me

When I look at the buttons, I think of it as a cross.

When I look at texts like "press X to...", I think of it as a letter. Environment matters.

And as always at the border that separates canons and fanons, PlayStation neither cares nor should care what I think of it as.

@GADG3Tx87 no, just no.
Have you ever heard of context?
If we’re talking shapes, like PS, X is a cross.
In the context of letters, such as a Nintendo controller, it’s an “ex”.

Much ado about nothing!

@Hengist I'd say that "Those diagonals on flags are crosses because they 'cross' from one end of a boundary to another, the lines that cross touching all four ends.

Major necropost, but it needs to be said that the actual instruction manuals for early PlayStation games called it "EKS BUTTON". Check your long box manuals, or online scans of them if you don't own any.

I've seen this in both Raiden Project and Ridge Racer, but there are no doubt many more.