What are your wackiest ideas for a “universal” controller layout that would appeal to the fans of the Xbox, Nintendo, and PS layouts? You certainly can’t pick one of the three, that would be lazy and frankly unfair for the other two layouts. It’s got to be something that everyone agrees on, something different!
I’ve got a few ideas: NSEW (the cardinal directions), RGBA (colours, also transparent button could be cool…), or maybe CMYK (printer ink colours for ease of printing)
What are your ideas for the universal controller layout?
I always thought the colors were dumb. Imo this is what the color scheme should be:
A/Circle=Green=Accept=Go
X=Red=Cancel=Stop
B=Blue
Y=Yellow
Put them wherever you want lol and I guess square feels blue and triangle feels yellow (kinda looks like an upside down y and a y has 3 points). It also satisfies the original intent for ps buttons without being confusing since x and circle are represented with the commonly known colors for those things. I personally prefer the asymmetrical Xbox stick/button layout.
And actually now that I’m thinking about it it’d be kinda cool if the triangle was flipped and the square had a horizontal line through it, then circle could be like a lower case a. Then you have both ps AND Nintendo/Xbox labels XD
Steam controller, but swap the buttons/touchpad locations. Everything else is perfect basically.
Nintendo’s ABXY makes the most sense to me among the modern controllers, but imo nothing beats their Gamecube’s ABXY layout.
No one has mentioned grip paddles/buttons yet and I really want those to be standard.
I would go with the design of the PS5 controller but with ABXY instead of circle square etc. And do it right way around like Xbox not backwards like Nintendo. Oh and go with an actual cruciform D-pad instead of the four buttons that are actually a D pad under the plastic thing. FFS.
Xbox adaptive controller
It would have to be modular and customizable. Whether the buttons can be removed and swapped around like key caps, or the D-pads and sticks are on interchangeable units, users would have to be able to arrange things a few different ways to get literally everyone on board.
Whatever the layout, bring back the Dreamcast VMU. Maybe we don’t need the external memory anymore, but the little display with extra game details was so cool.
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The Steam Controller was perfection.
People don’t want to hear it. But you are right.
I like PS glyphs because they are language-neutral and look more distinct, and I think, it would be point one in my choice. Point two is color-coding that helps most people (but may adjustments for accessibility?). Point three although ofercomplicating things is direction-coding, as it’d be generally nice to have a > shape near them, so they’d read intuitively from the first playthrough.
My initial thought went for second set of arrows. Like d-pad has one kind ⬆️➡️⬇️⬅️ and buttons have the other 🔼▶️🔽◀️. But I doubt it would be consisntetly great in different games with their own visual approach to portraying them.
Having more direct sign buttons on the other hand ✅️❌️❓️❕️ may be limiting to what devs want their game to be as it implies the check button is always approval, etc.
Math symbols, tho, ✖️➕️➖️➗️🟰 can be a universal and neutral set to pick from, especially if avoiding the confusing X button.
Also, ♤♡◇♧, in connection with older modes of gaming, but it should be tested for illegebitility between them and compared to arrows as three of them have vagualy triangular shape.
Also loss buttons.
I like the suits!
I know OP’s rules say no picking one of the three already, but these are such good points I can’t help but agree. I’m also biased from years of using a PlayStation controller. Even though I haven’t owned a PS console since PS2, I’ve still been using the PS4 & 5 controllers for PC gaming.
I think legibility and avoiding overloading symbols is top priority and the PlayStation glyphs achieve this admirably. On a pettier note, I’ve never liked seeing a prompt with a big, red B button pop up on screen telling me to do something, it’s very immersion breaking. While the PlayStation prompts aren’t exactly diegetic themselves, they’re at least less non-diegetic I guess, if that makes sense?
I won’t argue symmetry vs. non-symmetry of control sticks as I don’t really think there’s a correct answer here, it’s very preferential. I obviously prefer the symmetric, but I think there’s a reason the DualShock has undergone only minor changes since it was first introduced in check notes 1997?! JFC, that’s almost 30 years …
That’s immersion 🅱️reaking, lol.
I vouch for symmetry, or rather important buttons not being placed on the bottom. Active movements and especially button presses, e.g. in QTEs or multiple menus, are rather uncomfortable there, while sticks employ a different and less demanding moveset of slightly tilting them to the side. I don’t see a reason why it’s assymetrical on Xbox and I feel it’s really dumb in autonomous Joycons with Nintendo party games when they should be completely interchangeable when shared between casual gaming persons.
Everyone could learn a thing or two from the Steamdeck. The twin sticks, the touch pads, the double shoulder buttons, the four on the back, the overall ergonomics, it’s really great to use.
I mean, I’d go back to Sega-style six button layouts.
Also, leverless controllers. Better for your hands, more effective. The one example I’ve seen of adding dual sticks to those is… not going to replace pads for 3D games any time soon, though.
I think for the button layout, if you keep the cross shape you can do directions (up/down/left/right). NSEW could work. Ultimately, though, the most rational one is Xbox and the most universal is PlayStation (in that it doesn’t rely on a specific script). Frankly, at this point Nintendo’s “we give up” solution of showing four dots with the relevant one highlighted may be the only way to fix this whole situation.
Also, also, D-pad above forever. Only valid choice. Fight me.
What’s a leverless controller?
Think an arcade stick but instead of… well, a stick, it has buttons for each of the directions. Looks like some variation of this.
They’re good. I don’t like the “thumb to jump” thing that most of them do, but you can get them with a d-pad shaped directional thing instead.
That just feels like keyboard controls with extra steps
Now you got it.
Really, really good for 2D games and fighting games. Tetris-like games, too.
as someone who has never had a playstation, knowing now the original semantic meanings of the playstation glyps i think they’re the best compromise IF we go back to their original meanings. they had it right the first time with hlw intuitive it is to have O being confirm and X being cancel, and it’d keep Nintendo people somewhat happy because confirm is still the far right button. maybe they could also release a version with reversed or hotswappable buttons, using the current PS layout (which in this case would be O on the bottom and X on the right) to throw a bone to the xbox crowd because this compromise doesn’t do anything for them otherwise
or like another commenter suggested, we throw out the diamond button layout, too tainted by the competing standards of the console wars, and use the gamecube layout like God intended
The one Xbox layout (asymmetric sticks) is to me the best.
I don’t see it any other way.Are you by any chance a Nintendo hardware dev and need inspiration? ;)
