Sony has swapped the use of X and Circle buttons on Japanese PlayStation 5 consoles. Like West’s tradition which has already been the basic interface os Sony’s console for 25 years, the X button will confirm and Circle will cancel the actions.
According to Famitsu, the Japanese versions of PS5 games will still use the previous definitions of X and Circle, contradictory to how the buttons will now function on the PlayStation interface. “Wow, this is big news for UI/UX. PlayStation 5 will use the X button to confirm by default for ALL REGIONS including Japan, who previously used O to confirm for the past 26 years. Muscle memory frustration for the nearly 10M PS users in Japan coming up.” Famitsu editor Kenji Iguchi wrote on Twitter yesterday.
“In Japan, the ‘Circle = Good, OK, Correct’ symbolism has been common knowledge for many decades. When designing the original PlayStation controller, it was likely that the placement of the O/X were hence made to match the Super Famicom’s A/B, and were utilized similarly.”, Iguchi continued.
The console will launch 5 weeks later in Japan, but now more details about the console are coming to light as Japanese outlets have begun to examine the first units. For example, the upcoming PlayStation 5 is expected to run quieter compared to PlayStation 4.
