PS5 Changes Players Decisions in Japan

It doesn’t matter who you are, you’ve played, or likely you’ve seen someone play a Japanese game. Most of you have probably played games from either Japanese console titan: PlayStation or Nintendo. Well, I’m about to say something that’s a bit obvious for you, either A or O are what you’ve been pressing to confirm, agree, and so on to show approval. Meanwhile, X or B often are used to cancel or show disapproval in games. Yet if you look at any release from western developers, even under Sony/PlayStation’s own banner, the O was swapped for X. A simple psychological trick that will be changing from the PS5 onward, as it seems.

At an unspecified time in September, the Japanese press and YouTubers got a hands-on preview of the upcoming Sony console, the PlayStation 5. Set to release in just over a month, many have found pre-order trouble. Others find the price hard to swallow during the current pandemic and unstable economic future at a price point of $399.99 and $499.99. Though the digital edition is clocking in as quite cheap for recent years, it does lack what some do find important: A disk drive for physical games, both first and second hand owned games.

However, I’m not here to proselytize about the value of owning a game instead of just letting it sit on your hard drive. As reported by Japanese gaming magazine/website Famitsu (A rough English translation of the article via Google Translate), the Japanese console titan has made a drastic change for some in Asian regions, including for those in Japan. Famitsu editor Kenji Iguchi notes in a detailed Twitter thread, for those that don’t speak Japanese, what this means. Circle, or 白星 (which translates to “white star” or “white circle”), shows approval and suggests things are good; Whereas ばつ or バツ translates roughly to “X,” mostly meaning wrong, bad, or not good.

As I said at the top, it is simple psychology. However, we don’t have that in the west; Instead, we have as Kenji points out: “X marks the spot.” It has become so apparent to PlayStation/Sony that the rest of the world has just adopted the X as accept, and it turns out they are pressing X for Asia too. According to the Japanese site ねとらぼ (think CNet Japan), Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) said to the site, the decision to change is built into the system and will not be a user made one. Meaning Japanese PlayStation 5 owners will have to join the rest of the world by pressing X to confirm and make decisions from now on. Now with the circle being used for canceling too.

This will be a big change for PS5 users in Asia, as many in the west can or do find that initial change a drastic one. PlayStation has held the circle = good mantra for as long as the console manufacturer has been making consoles. One would assume the reason that circle is on the right is that Nintendo features A on the right, with A being used for accepting too. That is entirely based on the PlayStation’s history before releasing in Japan in 1994, Sony and Nintendo signed the dotted line to make a CD-ROM version of the SNES/Super Famicom, the PlayStation. That partnership failed and Sony would go on to sell 102.49-million PlayStations, with more than 150-million PlayStation 2s.