Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/09/sony-insists-the-x-button-is-a.html
…
3 Likes
Delta Oh X Box
11 Likes
The unanswered question, however, is why they switched the functions of the X and O buttons for the Western release of the PlayStation.
On a Japanese console, the O button is used to confirm menu choices, and the X button to cancel them.
On a Western console, it is the other way around.
No-one knows why this is.
If you try and research it, you’ll find a bunch of people smugly telling you that the reason the buttons are configured that way in Japan is because they associate a circle with affirmative/correct in the same way we do a tick mark, and they associate a cross with negative/incorrect.
Which is fine, but doesn’t explain why they’d switch them.
Sure, we don’t have the positive association for a circle, but the idea of a diagonal cross meaning “wrong” or “cancel” is very well established here; it’s not as though we have a positive meaning assigned to the X symbol.
10 Likes
This is at the same level of the creator of GIF saying it is pronounced “jif.”
16 Likes
6 Likes
7 Likes
How about “X marks the spot”?
4 Likes
Which makes total sense since the word the G stands for is “graphic” (pronounced “jra-fik”).
11 Likes
I have heard that theory espoused before, but does it really seem to you like that is such a strong association that it outweighs the one of X as “cancel” within a computing/iconography context?
2 Likes
And? I don’t see the problem.
9 Likes
5 Likes
Saltire!
1 Like
They are all pizza.
Pizza Slice, Pizza Box, Whole Pizza, No Pizza.
27 Likes
I call it the “Greater Than Less Than” button
><
9 Likes
There is no acceptable argument in this discussion.
If you try to argue with them, you lose.
The only proper answer is too laugh enough to make them stop talking.
3 Likes
DOX Box???
1 Like
X is the times symbol. O is zero. The 3 sided one is delta. The four sided one is “end of proof.” Sony is trying to make math fun.
5 Likes
20 years after the word had already been commonly used, no less.
8 Likes
