Surprisingly I have yet to comment on what would have to be one the biggest changes in everyday life when one migrates from Western countries to Asia. Something that is apparent almost on a daily basis. And I am not still used to it at all. Neither is my son. Something so profound that unlearning my Western behavior, which has embedded itself somewhere in the forebrain with other basic human functions such as eating, sleeping and controlling body temperature, seems utterly impossible.
What I am talking about here is of course the Playstation controller Dualshock which can be seen as a natural extension of my arm. Apparently since the dawn of time, Japanese invented logic for controller buttons has been inverted to the Western equivalent. In Asian models selecting something requires you to push O-button while cancelling a choice or backing out from a menu requires a push on the X-button. And as everybody is well aware this just the opposite in any console Sony has launched in the Western markets.
Naturally the buttons themselves are physically on the same location worldwide, which results in wrong button being pressed again and again. Even after 6 months of practice. To make matters even worse, Western game developers are apparently blissfully ignorant of this lack of standardization and hard code some of the basic functionality along with the visual cues of the buttons that should be pressed. Take a note that I said some, not all, so in an average game one screen tells you to push X to accept and 2nd screen prompts for an O. While the behavior might be the opposite. Occasionally it shows both X for accept and X for cancel.
How am I ever going to integrate into this world of madness?
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