• WarmSoda@lemm.ee
    148·
    1 year ago

    It’s select and start.
    What’s it supposed to be, windows and hamburgers?

    • The Picard Maneuver@startrek.websiteOP
      68·
      1 year ago

      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”

    • BOMBS@lemmy.worldEnglish
      132·
      1 year ago

      ⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️🅱️🅰️🅱️🅰️[select][start]

      REST 30 REST 30

      🏅🏅🏅🏅 🎖️🎖️🎖️🎖️

    • killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
      101·
      1 year ago

      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was often the button on arcades or gamepads that allowed you to choose menu options (which still works but has mostly been replaced by A).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”?

      • Grammaton Cleric@lemmy.world
        22·
        1 year ago

        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.

      • rotopenguin@infosec.pubEnglish
        161·
        1 year ago

        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)

        • son_named_bort@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          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.

          • rotopenguin@infosec.pubEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            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

        • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          I used to have a black and white Binatone TV game knockoff.

          10 games, mostly variations of Pong. All the game options like speed and bat size were big physical toggle switches on the main unit.

      • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
        13·
        1 year ago

        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.

    • KaiReeve@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 year ago

      I actually have a windows button on my gaming device. Still searching for the hamburgers button though

    • valek879@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • flashgnash@lemm.ee
    55·
    1 year ago

    Did the buttons really need renaming? It’s not like options and share or + and - make any more sense

    • ursakhiin@beehaw.org
      12·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • TheAndrewBrown@lemm.eeEnglish
      101·
      1 year ago

      I get being nostalgic for Start/Select but how does Options/Share not make more sense? The options button brings up a menu of options for most games and share allows you to share screenshots or video from the game. Whereas start did the same thing options does now which has nothing to do with the word Start and Select was sorta a catch all button for an action you only used occasionally, but was never used for selecting which was usually X but sometimes one of the other shapes.

      • flashgnash@lemm.ee
        10·
        1 year ago

        Options I kinda get but it sounds dumb to me, would’ve been better as “menu” because it’s not exclusively for options, also for pausing and other menus.

        Share isn’t what that button normally does at all in my mind, sure maybe PlayStation have it bound to that but normally it brings up an alternate menu to start that isn’t the pause menu (like in Minecraft and overwatch it brings up player list/scoreboard as an example

        A lot of games I believe use it for the map too

        • TheAndrewBrown@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          I haven’t played Overwatch or Minecraft but every game I’ve played with one of those options used pressing in the touchpad to do that. I’ve never played a game where the share button didn’t share somehow.

          I just looked it up and for Minecraft it’s used to take a screenshot or bring up a screenshot menu. I couldn’t find anything for Overwatch though. Are you sure you didn’t remap the button? Or are you using it for PC? It might work different in that case.

          I do agree that menu would’ve been a better name, but that doesn’t mean that Options doesn’t make more sense than Start which is what the original comment said.

          • flashgnash@lemm.ee
            1·
            1 year ago

            I was thinking of java edition Minecraft which I now realize I made my own configuration for

            Still, not sure where I’ve got it from but I’ve definitely got the idea the select button is for menus that aren’t the start menu

      • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
        5·
        1 year ago

        The traditional role of the Select button is actually handled via the D-pad in most games. It was the button you used to change your selection, not to actually select something (that would be done with Start.)

        Of course, even in the NES era past the first couple of years menus could generally be navigated with the D-pad, so even then Select was pretty useless, which is probably why the Genesis didn’t bother with it.

  • banazir@lemmy.ml
    29·
    1 year ago

    My nephew was so confused when I kept telling him to press “Select” when we played on a PS5.

  • DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    221·
    1 year ago

    Everytime I start up Burnout: Paradise Remastered it tells me to hit Options to start the game. No! It’s Start to start!

  • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    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.

      • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
        6·
        1 year ago

        Well, it’s called a Share button I think, but I can’t find any way to actually share screenshots other than Twitter.

        So I don’t use it.

        • MrBusiness@lemmy.zipEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          Share

          Awesome, I’ll send this to some friends!

          Only on these platforms. No, you can’t send it to people on your friends list, what are you stupid?

  • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
    20·
    1 year ago

    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.”

  • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
    181·
    1 year ago

    Could we take the guy who put a dedicated screenshot button on the controller instead of another options button and drown him in the nearest septic tank?

  • lukini@beehaw.org
    10·
    1 year ago

    I will always call it the start button, but to be honest, menu or options are better names for what it does.

    • MrBusiness@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Same, but never liked options as the name though sounds like that should be the word to replace ‘select’. Menu is an adequate replacement for ‘start’. Won’t call it that but makes sense.