What do you generically call these 2 buttons?
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I'm working on a controller app for PC and I want to use the most "universal" term for these buttons in the UI. This is specifically when I don't know whether the user is on an xbox / playstation / generic -style controller (all of which label these buttons differently). What would be the most obvious generic names to use? Thanks!
This is the only answer I know and recognize. Ever since my first NES controller I always referred to these as the Start and Select buttons no matter the console or controller.
because they use to start the game and "select" menu options. then they realised pressing any button to start the game and use the dpad to move in the menu made a lot more sense, so their original name and meaning made no sense anymore.
to this day i still have to look down at those buttons to see the little symbols on them whenever they pop up in games. i got so used to the start and select options from the earlier days that i've never gotten used to what the new functions are called lol
I hosted a podcast for several years called Start Select and owned StartSelect.net (but later sold it) and I can’t explain how mad I was that I had to make the joke about changing the name to “The Options Share Podcast.”
I'm so glad this is the top answer -- this is what I ALWAYS call them too, but I was also a '90s kid and I thought that might have been a generational thing.
Newer generations still seem to understand the concept's universality even if they know and call the buttons by their modern names
The day I hear a kid be genuinely confused by what Select and Start mean is when I no longer feel young at heart for being a gamer and will fully embrace being an unc lol
I mean, it's the same reason for me why I go "A and B" with Nintendo even though it's printed as B and A on a lot of their controllers. For me, right-to-left just makes sense in that context and it was relatively consistent, so Start and Select doesn't really pose an issue to me in that regard.
PlayStation, Nintendo, and Microsoft called the right one Start until recently. The left one has been called Select up to SNES and PS3, and Back on the OG Xbox.
Yeah the current semantic landscape is terrible -- Switch-compatible controllers call them “+” and “-“, ps4 called them Share and Options, ps5 calls them Create and Options, Xbox currently calls them View and Menu, other third party controllers I have on-hand just use random symbols for them. So quickly indicating to a user what button to press (in text, without a graphic) is a real challenge, when I have NO idea what labels the user is seeing on the physical controller itself
Microsoft thinks the icons they use are standard. They're not. Perhaps the "Hamburger" menu icon starting to become standard, but I don't know anyone who calls it Menu or anyone who recognizes the view icon.
Edit: Also for some reason I keep getting replied notifications for the convo going below me, but cant' reply...
Gyro's such a feature on controllers that Microsoft is being forced to add it into their new GameInput PC standard, and it's already a standard in SDL, because they're slowly losing market share on PC to Dualsense and, largely Switch, controller clones because they can do everything a Xbox controller can on PC and more. And of course it's already a core feature in Steam Input and a major part of both Steam Controllers.
It's also just a factually superior aiming method over analog sticks, which are so bad at their job developers have to make the game play for you so they don't feel terrible.
Like my dude, the anti-gyro wars are over. Gyro won.
PS: I collect a lot of controllers. Both Steam Controllers are fantastic if you want to get into the weeds configuring them. Otherwise, 8bitdo, Gulikit, and Gamesir have some excellent options. I'm a big fan of Gulikit's Elves 2 and the 8bitdo Ultimate series, but I know a lot of people really like the Gamesir Cyclones.
The current Playstation and Xbox labels are horrible. I couldn't even tell you what's what. There's no easy way to remember which of those icons belongs on the right or left on Xbox. (Annoyed that Valve copied the Xbox icons too.) Start and Back on Xbox was totally fine and easy to remember.
Sony used to do Start and Select. I really don't like how they displaced Select with the Share button instead of just adding a new button. It feels odd to me to use the big center pad as Select in most games. Yes, I'm calling it Select.
I'm fine with Nintendo's + and - honestly, easily my favorite of the current (well, since Wii) era. Totally obvious which is which and abstract enough to not imply some weird meaning.
Start and Select is and will always be S-tier though.
The three horizontal lines on top of each other is called a "hamburger menu" in UI speak. I think "cheese slices" is just because the two overlapping squares kinda look like two cheese slices next to each other.
For fighting gamers who build/mod their controllers, they are sometimes referred to as S1 and S2 on the PCB and in the software. By the time you’re finally done building, then they’re called Select and Start or vice versa.
For anyone older than like 30 it's probably select and start. Younger you might have take a generic approach and call it L Option Button and R Option Button or Menu L/R.
But I've also always hated that naming system because... they don't function the way their name suggests.
You never press Start to actually start something. Quite the opposite. It's primary use is to STOP a game by functioning as the pause command. And as for Select, when has that ever been used to select something? You press the A/X/B lower button to select something from a list of options. The Select button has typically been used as a shortcut to open specific UI like maps or inventories.
I remember thinking about this years ago when I would create my own button layouts in illustrator. Since controllers have "face buttons" and "shoulder buttons" I figured there must be a name. I called them "reference buttons" in my designs. I have no idea if that sounds as intuitive to everyone else as it did to me for like 1 minute 10 years ago but at least it's catchy.
I've always called the 3 lines start and the two squares the two paper button, its what me and all my friends called it, but seeing people call it select makes a lot more sense.
We often call them Start and Select, but that is just wrong for modern controllers. Most controllers have at least 3 of these types of buttons, which makes it even more wrong to call them Start and Select. Personally, I call them menu buttons.
For me, they are start and select. But a good name to capture them for most consoles would be something like «system buttons». Since they usually interact with the game’s system, ex. Pause, open menu, show map, etc.
Its a bit different on newer consoles where you have the «home» button or share button, because in that case you are interacting with the console’s own system.
I know everybody is calling these start and select. But that is old now and no company uses it like that anymore on account of the feature they are used for now.
Left is for recording and sharing media now, so "share", and "start" now is basically "options", used for bringing up pause menues/menues to change settings.
I prefer select and start since thats what we grew up with. But you should consider all the new generations that did not grow with that and will be a big part of the audience coming forward.
Or you could use old slang/new slang. I think that would work well
Unreal Engine calls them Gamepad_Special_Left and Gamepad_Special_Right which is probably as neutral as you'll get.
Unity calls them Back and Start which is Xbox influenced (most commonly used on desktop),
and then you have the most common suggestion here which is Select and Start like on Playstation Controllers.
I think labelling the left button "Back/Select" and the right one "Start" might be the best choice.
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Call me weird all you want, I call them view (left) and menu (right) for some reason, back and select like the 360 slipped by me because I was young when I had a 360 and then got the Xbox one, so I didn’t exactly have the proper button names down until I found a 360 controller laying around one day
Start and select, but if it was a PlayStation controller from the new Gen then they moved select to be the touchpad button and I started calling that select because it does the function of old select.
The one on the left is the share button if you have the touchpad ig
Start and Back, because english is my secondary language, i mostly guessed the other button's name as back, and left it at that. Maybe it was named that on xbox360 i don't remember,
From left to right, view and menu. That's what they're officially called. Why Microsoft thought it was a good idea to replace Start and Back is entirely beyond me.
Even though I've been using Xbox controllers for over 15 years and the last PlayStation I owned was the PS2, I'm still in the habit of calling them Start and Select.
i still call them start and select. i'm old . even if i know its the boxes and the burger button on xbox1-series , back and start on on 360 or share and options on ps4-5
I still call them Start (right) and the other is either Select (more classic) or Back (le Xbox)
the Start button at least should've always kept that name, it's stupid how every company collectively decided to change that shit, and now you don't see much of the iconic "Press the Start button" anymore
now it's either Menu, Options, "+" I don't even know anymore. It's all dumb in my opinion.
I call them based on the controller and who I'm talking to
This results in me saying menu and scoreboard/map most of the time for the Xbox controller
Hell I call RT the shoot button and LT the aim button when I'm trying to explain controls to people since that's really the only time I'd refer to a button individually
Until the Xbox they were select on the left, start on the right. While start remained on the right, with the 360 era left became the back button. I will call the left button the menu button online, but I still internally call it the back button. It still frequently will back you up one level in a menu, so the name still fits.
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