PS5 Default Selection Button to Be X for the First Time in Japan

The PS5 will mark the first time that the X input is the default selection button in Japan, after 26 years of the Circle button being used to confirm selections.The news emerged as part of a raft of Japanese media PS5 previews, which covered games, hardware, the DualSense controller, and more. While the X button has always been western players’ selection button, Cirlce has been used for the past four generations of PlayStation consoles.

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.https://t.co/Heo7XaWjsk

— Kenji Iguchi (@needle_e) October 4, 2020

Twitter user Kenji Iguchi, makes clear what a major change this is, noting that muscle memory will be hard to overcome for many Japanese players. He notes that in Japan, the Circle symbol is associated with “Good, Ok, Correct.” This and the placement of the A button on the far right of the popular SNES controller are said to have influenced Sony’s initial decision to offer a different control scheme for the PlayStation in Japan.

This is also why on the Nintendo Switch, the A button is on the right and the B button is at the bottom, which may take some getting used to for Western players. However, in 2020, it seems that Sony has decided to standardize the control scheme across all regions, starting with the PlayStation 5.

A Famitsu preview makes clear that Japanese games themselves continue to use the Circle button to confirm, while the system uses X. It seems likely that players will be able to remap buttons in the system settings, but that’s not confirmed as yet.

In other PlayStation 5 news, here’s a rundown of the PS4 to PS5 save game transition situation.

Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.