[chrisacky]

I wonder if this is why Nintendo reversed the meaning of B A on their controllers.

I hate that the switch does this.

But it means sense if everyone in Japan is used to that behaviour because of the swapping of X and O on Playstation.

[debugnik]

What do you mean reversed? The NES already assigned letters right-to-left: B A!

Controllers typically used sets of A-B(-C) X-Y(-Z) face buttons, A/B intuitively meaning ok/back however they were laid out, usually in straight or angled rows assigned left-to-right (e.g. Sega) or right-to-left (e.g. Nintendo). The angled layouts are the modern Xbox and Nintendo layouts (which Nintendo used since forever and Xbox I guess inherited from their Windows CE involvement with Sega).

But Sony came up with the symbols instead, so Japanese devs followed the maru/batsu metaphor with circle/X, whereas early western games used X/triangle until they switched to X/circle, and those became official regional layouts until the PS5 switched Japan to X/circle.

[firen777]

This mess of different symbols is why video game should allow users to change the button prompt to their preferred symbol, especially games with QTE.

[debugnik]

I'm fine with different controllers displaying different symbols for the same button, but random-button QTEs and games based around entirely contextual prompts are the bottom of the barrel of gaming. I've seen so many people fail at games by Quantic Dream and Supermassive simply because they were playing with an unfamilar controller.

The labels exist to help the game teach its control scheme, not to make players memorise the layout itself. But of course, games without consistent game mechanics don't have any control scheme to teach.

[kyle-rb]

The Switch didn't change the meaning of A and B; the OS and all first-party Nintendo games that I've seen use A=confirm and B=cancel, which has been the case for a long time.

There are some games I've played on the Switch that use B=confirm, I think usually so that button layout is the same across consoles.