I know in the Japanese version of the PS4 by default that its:
- X: キャンセル / 戻る [Cancel / Back]
- O: 選択 / 確認 [Select / Confirm]
While in most consoles globally: the X button is used to select or confirm something while the O button is for cancel, basically the sequences are inverted. I know this because I’ve played games on a Japanese PS, even in GTA V (the imputs for either button have been adjusted on that version).
The answers you’re getting are backwards, causally. The trend of Japanese games using the rightward button for confirm and the downward button for cancel started on the Super Nintendo, which the PlayStation copied its controller design from.
The four shapes used on the PlayStation buttons were chosen as pictographs representing their intended uses. So O is O because O was already equivalent to a checkmark in Japan, with X being negatory across cultures. Square was intended for menus or references, shaped like a computer window or sheet of paper. And if I remember right, the upward pointing triangle represented the idea of the top of the player character, suggesting head, suggesting eyes, suggesting camera control in anticipation that 3D games would need a primary button for that. But these other two buttons being prescriptive of function instead of reflective of the function that was already there got roundly ignored. Western games, which already favored the downward button for confirm before the PlayStation, ignored all four intentions.
As for your GTA experience, many games localize their menu controls just the same as localizing their language.
Why, since the days of the Super Nintendo, has Japan favored a rightward confirm while other countries favored downward one? I haven’t the foggiest.
As others have already mentioned:
- Japanese convention is that O means yes (like circling an answer on a test) and X means no (like crossing something out).
- It’s a Japanese console so actually it’s the rest of the world that flipped it.
Another point to consider is that Japanese is typically read from right-to-left, so the ‘first’ button is O. See also: Nintendo controllers, which still use ABXY in a ‘backwards’ arrangement, with A on the right.
As for why western developers decided to flip the controls? No idea who started it or why, but it’s become the global convention. That said, I remember a lot of PS1 games using triangle as the back button.
Circle means correct, cross means wrong, so mapping them to ok and cancel like that makes sense. Why do others have it the other way around?
Aside from ergonomics, I always assumed it was “blue good, red bad”.
X marks the spot?
And O for “Oh no” or “Oops”?
That feels like a stretch.
Back in my day some games used triangle as back 👴
X & O are reversed in the rest of the world because they noticed pretty quickly that the ok/go/yes button should be in the most ergonomic place your thumb naturally rests on. By PS5, Japan joined in with the rest of us
