In a major blow to Sony in their home market, Microsoft has sensationally changed the confirm button location, aligning with traditional Japanese sensibilities.
Sony made headlines earlier this week after announcing that the PlayStation 5 would change the official confirm button from O to X in their native Japan, causing shockwaves through the industry. Although commonplace for the confirm function to be assigned to X in other regions, the move creates universal parity the brand has never seen — even during the PS1 era.
Japanese fans are furious at the Tokyo based tech company, as O and X are traditionally enriched in Japan's storied history, representing Confirm (O) and Cancel (X) respectively. Pundits are claiming that Sony has abandoned their motherland in pursuit of foreign money and are vowing to boycott the PS5 to inflict disdain over the seemingly trivial issue.
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| Japan is not happy with Sony |
To make matters worse, Microsoft have seized on the opportunity to inflict more pain on Sony, announcing that their upcoming Xbox Series X|S system will change the confirm function from A to Y in all regions (along with other alterations), as a sign of solidarity to their eastern fan base.
"We find it disgusting that Sony would treat their own native land with such disregard, that we had to act." Stated Microsoft's Phil Spencer in a PR blurb.
"It's no secret that Microsoft has struggled in Japan with the Xbox brand, but we're doing absolutely everything we can except making games that actually appeal to the Japanese market to solve the problem. Moving confirm to Y in all regions shows how serious we are about the eastern regions, as the top-center face button is the location of O on a PlayStation controller."
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| Appendix A. Microsoft's Redmond VPN Server. |
"We've also made the logical step to move the cancel button from B, which could be interpreted as a reference to America dropping a bomb on the country and cancelling Japan's war efforts in World War 2, to the controller sync button on top of the controller. The sync button will be moved to the more appropriately vacated bright red B button, which is easily identifiable and necessarily avoidable."
Microsoft and Sony have had put away the hostilities towards each other during this COVID hampered next gen pre-release window, but if these shots fired by Microsoft are any indication, things are about to heat up!
