[ekianjo]

I don't think there is much relevance in the Japanese argument. One funny detail is that Sony actually inverted in their games the meaning of Round and X for western markets -> making X act as "validate" and Round as "Back/Cancel", the exact opposite of what they do in Japan.

As for "X being a true icon", I don't know. For me, it could stand as well as an abbreviation for "eXit" -> X.

The AmigaOS Workbench used (and still uses) a dot instead of a X. It's just a matter of conventions.

[wbillingsley]

Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS, released in 1989, was very popular indeed among Microsoft's customer base. And the first to have a (DOS) menu bar.

Open the File menu and 'x' is highlighted in red in the word 'Exit'.

In other words, prior to Windows 95's release, DOS programs had already set firmly in Microsoft's customers' minds that 'x' was for exit.

RISC OS (1987), used on Acorn computers in schools in the UK also used an 'X' close button on the windows. And look at what word is prominent in the bottom right of the desktop... exit

http://www.dasmirnov.net/media/blogs/blog/bigarthur.gif

It seems that as soon as the word "exit" is prominent in your UI, 'x' is going to become associated with exit.

An enormous amount of Microsoft's target market were already using Word Perfect every day and seeing red 'x's for exit. So when they decided to put a button on the window bar, what else were they likely to pick?

[Bahamut]

Was this true in all of their games? I know early PlayStation games did use O for confirm and X for cancel - even a few years into its lifetime, this was the case as Final Fantasy VII is an obvious example.

[praseodym]

It depends on the game and possibly the console region: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_(console)#Regional_...

[ekianjo]

Are you talking about the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII or the western version ? I have the Japanese version at home, I can check quickly if needed.

[simias]

Both versions use O to accept and X to cancel. In the european FFVIII hovewer it was switched around. I think only early and rushed ports of japanese titles used O to accept on the playstation.

It's still true today, for instance dark souls on the ps3 uses O to accept on the japanese version and X on the western.

I'm still not sure why Sony did that by the way. While I'm willing to believe that X strongly means "bad/false" in japanese, I don't feel like it really means "accept" in western cultures as far as I know. When the playstation came out I don't think I would have had a lot of trouble accepting O for accept and X for cancel.

[tragic]

I think in FFVIII it was Triangle to cancel. (O was the menu button.) They completely jumbled it all up for some reason.

[mhurron]

Triangle was the menu button, O for cancel, X to accept/action, Square to play Triple Triad.

[eropple]

I believe I had to remap 'menu' back to Triangle when I played through it on my Vita last month. Could be misremembering though.

[gambiting]

It depends on the version of the console. Japanese Playstation Portable and Vita have the O button as "accept" - but I have noticed that not all games respect that. European games played on a Japanese Vita will use X for accept, but on the Playstation Portable most games will use the system settings, rather than their own(there were exceptions, however).

[brazzy]

> I don't think there is much relevance in the Japanese argument.

I wouldn't discount it; one instance where I'm pretty sure it was taken into account is the design of checkboxes (HTML and otherwise). At least in Germany a checkbox on paper would be marked with an x to represent true - but that would be utterly confusing to a Japanese person.