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?
It already exists.
The Steam Controller was perfection.
People don’t want to hear it. But you are right.
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
Controller layout was mastered with the GameCube and I will harbour no dissent
Unironically though it has a fantastic conversation with you as soon as you see it. A is obviously primary, B is obviously secondary and X and Y are clearly tertiary and equal.
amen! i’m not bothered by different glyphs as much as i am by everyone making the primary button different (although i guess now xbox and ps agree) and that just doesn’t happen with a physical controller that has an obvious hierarchy of buttons. plus B A and X all being in a line makes them all accessible with the natural wiper motion of the thumb, way easier for my arthritic mitts to find their way around than two rows of two
Actually yeah, this has merit. I see a few places for improvements though.
- I’d swap the d pad and yellow for joysticks, playstations mirrored joys are generally better for your thumbs over time.
- replace the round B button with another bean shaped button like the X and Y, add a 4th bean button in the lower corner and color code them.
- Bumpers and triggers, but use the mechanical style the 360 had, they were durable and reliable.
- extend the palm pads, the ps4 had a really good feel in the hand, not too small, not yo big.
- attach fans to the rumble motors and air flow holes around the palm pads. Sweaty hands on a controller suck, active cooling during intense moments would be great.
“When is Lindsey coming out of the closet? We all know you’re gay, Lindsey… and that’s ok.”
why does this sound life-threatening then ?
Shit, wrong thread, sorry
She’s pressing all his wrong buttons.
Xbox adaptive controller
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.
Steam controller, but swap the buttons/touchpad locations. Everything else is perfect basically.
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.
a modular controller with options for steamcontroller pads. 2 joysticks. 2 dpads. 2 sets of 4 buttons. still got triggers and paddles and every thing is customizable.
cool, but I would imagine the controller to be pretty chonk
if its modular you can add and remove bits. plus you can 3d print the opensource parts so it can be as chonk or as smol as you like
THAT would be cool
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.
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
X-inverted c-stick southpaw
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.
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.
