A video clip of Xbox boss Phil Spencer at the Tokyo Game Show has gone viral after he jokingly complained about the position of the Cross/X button on the DualSense controller. “The Cross/X button’s in the wrong place,” he laughed. “Cross/X is supposed to be over there.” He then pointed to the position of the Square button, which is obviously where it exists on the Xbox controller.
Sony would probably respond that the Cross/X button technically isn’t even pronounced ‘ecks’ like the letter, but is in fact the ‘cross’ button – they are shapes, after all. This line of thinking hurts our heads.
Spencer is, of course, just messing around – but it’s a pretty amusing clip. What’s particularly crazy is that all three major platform holders – Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft – all place their Cross/X buttons in different locations. We imagine that could get quite confusing for casual players who aren’t intimately familiar with the layout of each controller.
[source x.com]
PlayStation Buttons based on work by VictorPines, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Comments 67
I feel his pain, been playing the Yakuza games on the xbox, trying to play the rhythm mini-games, completely lost.
This imbecile runs a division of a company?
Modern media: How a joke gets a serious "complain" in headline because drama and clicks
@Frmknst I mean, the article says many times he's just messing around. It's all tongue in cheek!
Weyyyyyy! Haha push square!
I think Sony really nailed it with the sacred symbols rather than just moving generic lettered buttons around like Xbox
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!
Using icons is an ingenious way to tiptoe the “Cross vs Ecks” button name discourse 😂 😂
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!
@Czar_Khastik you missed the point, “X on the wrong place” meant that he expected the power button to look like X like how Xbox does it. He wants to turn off the console. (Source: Sir_Eiyas)
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.
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