It's been done.

Nobody's been brave enough to name the buttons N(orth), S(outh), E(ast), and W(est).

Emulating Switch I realized how much I love the button prompts. Since the controller could be rotated they just filled in the button to press.

This is yet another one of the many reasons Steam is amazing. Not only do they have an abstracted layer that allows devs to insert control mappings that adapt to show your controller preference… but even BETTER, they have an option for “Universal” controller button iconography where they just show the relative position of the face buttons in a diamond layout ❖ where the button indicated is a filled circle ● and the others are outlined ○ - rather than letters like ABXY.

So like this :

…instead of “× or A or B” from PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo (respectively).

Valve has a chance to do something really funny.

I have, and always will, maintain that the Xbox controller button layout is the only one that makes any sense to me.

I don't have any problem with the PS controller, since the X is a shape, not a letter, but the Xbox layout always fucks me up so bad since it's become standard for PC games. The Nintendo layout was hardcoded into my brain in 1991 when I played Super Mario World. I don't think I'll ever really get used to the Xbox one even though I probably won't be playing on Nintendo consoles any more.

Here's a layout I just came up with:

  ☆
◇   ❌️
  ✔️

The PlayStation one is the symbol, not the letter, so that one is a bit different.

I don't even read button prompts.

Most games have the same functions on the same positions. It's only weird when they do shit like make R2 the sprint button. Like, what the absolute fuck is that shit?

Could be worse, it could be Japan where the purpose of X vs Circle is swapped.

There must be a stupid patent about an X button for every position on a game controller.

PlayStation was originally X = B O = A Because in Japan they use a circle to mean the same thing as in English a check mark is used. That is: "yes", or "correct". The cross means "no", or "wrong" in the same context in English and Japanese.

At some point the English language PlayStation games started flipping the meaning of X and O. Not sure why. Maybe to align with Xbox? So eventually Sony changed it in Japan too in order to standardise globally.