Circle. Triangle. Square. X. Long ago, the four buttons lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Cross nation attacked.
The X button on PlayStation controllers looks like the letter X. Look, I don’t know what to tell you. This isn’t exactly the kind of hard-hitting journalism I thought I’d be doing after I graduated either.
Now if only there was some kind of different, shaped-based word I could use here instead so it would fit in with the rest of the buttons’ naming convention… gimmie a minute, it’ll come to me.
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Turns out, it’s not a big X. Well, I mean, it is a big X, it’s just that Sony would prefer you refer to it as the “Cross” button.
Back in 2019, coincidentally long before Twitter became “X” (still not calling it that, Musky-boy), Sony got a little irate (or, one might say, cross?) with one particular internet denizen (who assumedly deleted their Twitter profile out of shame) for referring to the X button by its incorrect title.
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“Triangle. Circle. Cross. Square. If Cross is called X (it's not), then what are you calling Circle?” retorted whoever was behind PlayStation UK’s Twitter account. Oh hey, the UK flag has a big X on it too! Mate, the jokes in this article are just writing themselves.
Even though multiple people in the thread refused to fall in line, Eurogamer’s Vikki Blake noted that there’s actually some scientific basis behind the naming convention.
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OK, so, firstly, they’re all shapes and an X is a letter. I can only assume my Pulitzer Prize is already in the post.
Secondly, according to some boffin on Twitter, “Crosses form a square” and “Exes don't have the same distance between each stick.”
So, there you have it. It’s a Cross button.
Well, actually, it could be argued that Circle and Cross are actually “yes” and “no” buttons, as in Japan circles actually indicate something is correct whereas crosses are actually shorthand for something being incorrec– actually, you know what, never mind.
Topics: Sony, PlayStation