It’s select and start.
What’s it supposed to be, windows and hamburgers?I won’t give it up. Select and Start.
My wife makes fun of me for it whenever we play couch co-op games. “What do you mean press start? My controller doesn’t have a Start”
So you married her for her looks, it could be worse.
I mean, she’s still a gamer at least…
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“Press the button formerly known as Start”
I’ll never give up start, but the select button hasn’t been used as an actual selector button in decades
⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️🅱️🅰️🅱️🅰️[select][start]
REST 30 REST 30
🏅🏅🏅🏅 🎖️🎖️🎖️🎖️
I actually have a windows button on my gaming device. Still searching for the hamburgers button though
WTF was the select button actually for? I get start because it was often the button on arcades or gamepads that allowed you to choose menu options (which still works but has mostly been replaced by A).
What were we supposed to be “selecting”?
On the title screen of older NES games, the select button changed what mode you played in, then you hit start to start that mode/variation.
Ahh this makes sense. I played a lot of NES as a kid but must have just never encountered it
You always played the default game mode.
It was originally for selecting different options.
You’re on the start screen and it says:1 Player.
2 Players.You press select to choose which one. That’s just an example, lots of NES games were like that.
it is part of the move from arcade cabinets to home game machines. Cabinets had the normal controls up top for the game but there were other buttons and switches for controlling the cabinet itself including access to higher level game functions like difficulty settings that weren’t meant to be exposed to the user.
When Atari made their console the user held the controller for the game but there were also several switches on the console itself providing these same higher level functions (reset and game select). Many games required you to use these higher access level switches on the console to do things like select levels or game modes because these games were getting ported from arcade cabinets or just designed by people used to developing for arcade cabinets.
nintendo moved these switches from the console to the controller, and then as game development evolved these buttons became part of the normal controller and software scheme.
Select and Start was how the Atari 2600 did things. At the time, everybody was designing in terms of having one set of controls for when you’re in the game, and a set of meta-controls for adjusting stuff outside the game. The 2600 configuration GUI was the dumbest thing in the world. You look at a grid chart of game options in the manual, and you press the Select button 35 times to get to the version that you want.
The Famicom was much more able to draw and interact with a real configuration GUI. But Nintendo’s own experience was mostly in making the arcade game “Donkey Kong”, where you pick how many players by “pressing” the insert coin button and then Start. Nintendo was selling to a market that mostly knows home games from picking up a 2600 at a bankruptcy sale. So, keeping the separate meta-game buttons and game buttons was natural at the time. Later games developed a better design language for the meta-game UI, so most game studios left the Select/Start interface behind.
(Lol now I see that TubbyCustard said it all, but better)
The start button back then was called the reset switch. Hit reset when you get to game 13, you’d say. Now where was I? Oh yeah, the game select switch was on the console, which was the style at the time.
Oh yeah, they did put “reset” on it huh? I don’t know how they ever came up with that. Everywhere else, “reset” means “device gets zeroed out to its initialization state”. The only real reset was to turn the system off and on again. On some of those Atari originals, when you press select one time too many turning it off is the fastest way to start back around again. Video Olympics I’m looking at you
Honestly I call them “start” and “the tab button.”
I grew up with a PlayStation and PS2 but haven’t owned any console since the switch, preferring PC. So I remember start because it’s the start menu but select is usually on tab on PC.
This is the way.
Did the buttons really need renaming? It’s not like options and share or + and - make any more sense
For the switch, plus and minus have a symbolic benefit of matching their position on the console itself when the joycons are detached. It’s not significant enough to warrant the rename but it at least is more than just a rename.
My nephew was so confused when I kept telling him to press “Select” when we played on a PS5.
You must teach the boy the old ways.
Start and Select for life. SNES was my first gamepad.
Brother
Same. My older SO corrects me. I won’t have any of it.
Yeah, same. I actually forget the name of the button, too, so when I give someone the controller so they can play and they ask “how do I open the menu?” I’ll say “oh press start. It’s not called start actually but you know press the button that looks like it should be called start.”
I’m sorry, are we discussing paddles?
Everywhere I look, you’re 40% of Lemmy
Just doing my part!
Hello my name MonsiuerPatEBrown, and I use two spaces after a period.
I like to think that you did it here too, even without a 2nd sentence.
the worst is when they change the shapes to make them smaller (switch & ps5), gotta save pennies on manufacturing costs i guess
Sure, over the course of making 253489291647802 controllers with that savings we can use the excess profit to throw a pizza party instead of paying you a living wage!
I didn’t even realize till like last year that the big square button in the middle was also a touchpad. I kept going into the map in farcry and it would keep wiggling around. Didn’t realize till later that you can use that pad as a cursor
If you connect it to a PC, it works like a laptop touchpad.
Everytime I start up Burnout: Paradise Remastered it tells me to hit Options to start the game. No! It’s Start to start!
Should’ve gone the Nintendo route and used symbols. “+” and “-”
What are you talking about? The NES was what solidified the select/start names for me. No matter what any manufacturers call the two bottoms in the center of their controller, they will always be select and start.
It’s the start button, I agree
On Xbox we have Big X and Little X too!
The touchpad is just “big select”.
I’m not sure who in the name of all fuck decided that controllers should have a dedicated Tweeting button, but I suspect this gen will be the last of that.
