Summary
Tokyo Game Show is on now, letting attendees try out a bunch of different games. One of those attendees is, unsurprisingly,XboxbossPhil Spencer, who was recorded playing on aPlayStation 5on the show floor.
Also unsurprisingly, Spencer made a quick jab at the PS5 controller, joking at the “X button is in the wrong place” since, on the Xbox controller, it’s on the left-hand side. However, in doing this, Spencer has inadvertently reignited an age-old debate: what do you call the X button?
Everyone Is Arguing Over What To Call The X Button Again
Now, I thought we were all in agreement that this is the X button. As in, ecks, ex, or however you want to type it out. Who looks at an X and says “cross”? Well, apart from noughts and crosses, but that’s different, alright?
But as many have pointed out,Sony’s official position on the matter appears to be that itisthe cross button. So, maybe theSonyfans in the replies are technically correct. Still, as we see from Spencer in the video, the instinct will always be to say “X button”, as it has been since the firstPlayStationlaunched in 1994. I don’t think anything is going to take that way.
As for the X button being in the wrong position, that’s the case with every controller.Nintendo, Sony, andMicrosoftall have X buttons in their controllers, but can never agree on where to put them. It’s a nightmare. Although most of us probably rely more on muscle memory at this point anyway.
In any case, I’m with Spencer on this one, and it seems that most others are as well. I have never seen a video game refer to it as the cross button, and I’m certainly not going to start now.
Phil Spencer
Phil Spencer is the current CEO of Microsoft’s gaming division. He has been with the company since 1988, and known to be a gamer, was moved to the Xbox team upon the console’s launch in 2001.
