Summary
- The controller ABXY design originates from CAD: A/B marked primary buttons, X/Y marked secondary buttons.
- A 1993 Nintendo Power Q&A confirmed the CAD origin of the ABXY labeling.
- Nintendo kept ABXY; Microsoft swapped A/B positions — switching from Switch to Xbox is a nightmare.
If you have a Nintendo or a Microsoft controller nearby, go ahead and grab it and give it a good, solid look. Notice the face buttons, the ones with letters on them? You’ll see that they’re labelled A, B, X, and Y. They’ve been that way for decades, and it’s to the point where we don’t really wonder why it’s like that. But…why is it like that? Wouldn’t A, B, C, and D make more sense?
If you’re wondering the same, then I have some excellent news for you. Not only did someone discover the reason behind why controllers first used this design, but it was hidden in plain sight. Well, I say that, but the truth is, it was stuffed in a 32-year-old magazine. So maybe not ‘plain’ sight.
An old copy of Nintendo Power contains the secret behind the strange face button lettering
The mystery behind this design choice was revealed by a post on Bluesky by user Sasha’s Retrobytes (thanks for the spot, Time Extension!). It turns out, someone asked this exact same question to the old magazine Nintendo Power back in 1993. Fortunately, back then, Nintendo wasn’t the giant company it is today, so the magazine writers could actually contact the people who designed the controllers and ask them directly why the buttons used A, B, X, and Y, instead of A, B, C, and D.
So here’s the secret, straight from the horse’s mouth. The designers wanted to make the bottom two buttons the “primary buttons,” while the top two buttons would act as the “secondary buttons.” To achieve this, they wanted to label them accordingly so that both developers and players knew which buttons were the main ones. As it turns out, in the world of CAD (at least, back in 1993), A and B are used to mark primary elements, and X and Y are used to designate secondary elements. That’s why the buttons have those letters.
It seems Nintendo wasn’t too fussed to change it, as you’ll find those same button markings on the Switch 2. Even Microsoft got in on the fun, albeit they swapped the position of the A and B buttons, a change I will never forgive it for. Seriously, moving from my Switch to my Xbox controller is an absolute nightmare. Maybe I should turn a 3DS into an Xbox controller instead?