It was announced that Sony is planning to do something a little unconventional that may not seem like a big deal to Americans. Starting with the PlayStation 5, the X button on the controller will be the default button used to confirm in-game options. While many of us have already experienced that, it hasn’t always been that way in Japan.
Since this change will be affecting all PlayStations regardless of region, this is sure to catch some Japanese gamers off guard.
For those who don’t know, in Japan, the circle is the accepted symbol associated with something that is correct or “true” while the X symbol is associated with something that is incorrect or “false.” This has made its way into Western releases of games with one example being Square Enix’s Final Fantasy IX. In certain random battles, you could encounter someone who will ask you to take a quiz and it will ask you to choose between circle for true and X for false.
This change may take a little getting used to; however, as was the case in PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 titles, they were given the option to specify whether X or O would serve as the confirmation button. With customizable controls being a standard option in nearly every game published today, Japanese gamers may have to just go one more step to get things back to the way that are more familiar to them.
Sony stated that the change is being made because they want to avoid having the confirm butting being different between the console’s menu and the in-game controls.