It's select and start.
What's it supposed to be, windows and hamburgers?
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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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"
"Press the button formerly known as Start"
So you married her for her looks, it could be worse.
I won’t give it up.
Will you let it down?
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was often the button on arcades or gamepads that allowed you to choose menu options (which still works but has mostly been replaced by A).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"?
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)
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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.
I actually have a windows button on my gaming device. Still searching for the hamburgers button though
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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.
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.
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
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.
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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.
Everytime I start up Burnout: Paradise Remastered it tells me to hit Options to start the game. No! It's Start to start!
Blasphemy
Start and Select for life. SNES was my first gamepad.
Brother
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?
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.
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.
But....we have two buttons right? The right one was always start and the left one was options ig? I'm an Xbox 360 player
start and select
This habit is pre Xbox 360
Start and Back, respectively. Now it's "Menu" and "View"
...or possibly "hamburger" and "restore window to smaller size". Because that's logical?
So... I believe I'm old now...
*insert "I'm in this meme and I don't like it" picture.
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.
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I will always call it the start button, but to be honest, menu or options are better names for what it does.
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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.”
Curiously enough, the "start" button is now more of a "pause" button. Sometimes also a "skip cutscene" and "open menu" button. Microsoft was into something by actually renaming it to "menu" in the Xbox, since that's what it's used for nowadays. Sony probably chose to call it "options" on the PS4 onwards solely to avoid being sued for plagiarism.
My main controller is the 8bitdo sf30 pro, which as basically the Super Famicom controller but with sticks and extra buttons for modern functionality labels them Start and Select, as ordained by heaven.
This is why 8bitdo is the best
The zoomers of today are the the boomers of tomorrow.
On one hand yeah sure back in the day I get it.
Now dang near every game is press x to continue/begin so the start button just begs a question.
Should've gone the Nintendo route and used symbols. "+" and "-"
Let's not get political now.
On Xbox we have Big X and Little X too!
My primary gaming is on Xbox and I still can't tell the hamburger and copy button icons apart without looking at them when a game refers to them in a tutorial or menu.
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