PlayStation just dropped a little piece of knowledge on those trying to drift across a good-looking selection of games in the PlayStation Plus Premium Classics Catalog. And honestly, one of those “oohhh, yeah—that makes sense” moments: you just sit back in your chair and retort to yourself, why the hell did it take them so long?
According to a recent tweet by the AskPlayStation account, what Sony has done is create a setup where the SELECT button from yesteryears maps to the left side of the touchpad on PS5 and PS4 controllers, and then the START corresponds to the right side. I think the problem was very simply solved, but it used to throw players for a loop. They are quite proud of this revelation, adorning it with sparkle and lightbulb emojis with a tinge of cheek.
One can’t just let that drop and go by without opening a stream of … oh, so many opinions. Ah, the replies to that tweet — they’re a great mix of the current time. It is that little world-nugget of all sort of genius: practical questions, angry rants, and pleas for specific games all jumbled together.
Arguably, one of the most relatable responses came in from user AGD_gr: “I just remembered that ‘share’ and ‘options’ are not ‘select’ and ‘start’.” Hell yeah. Our brains are so conditioned into the new terminology that the old terms feel like a fuzzy memory from some other era. That opened a mini-thread. IceBlueLugia replied: “It’s been like that for 12 years dude haha where have you been”, to which AGD_gr replied: “Some things of the past time cannot erase.” Deep.
Then, of course, the crowd were quick to turn that into a bigger request. Nelson “El Gamer” Cotto didn’t give a damn about the touchpad; his priority was: “When are you guys gonna add PS3 games the Portal cloud streaming library?????” He’s got his priorities straight. And City Hunter is out here demanding “PS3 disc backward compatibility please,” accompanied by the DVD emoji. That, however, opens a whole different can of worms which Sony appears dead set to keep firmly closed, at least for the time being.
The touchpad was turned into a subject of heavy controversy. Joshi gave a real question: “Why dont you make developers use the toichpad for something more than a map.” He’s not wrong. For all the real estate it takes on the controller, it’s critically underused in most games. It’s basically a giant expensive pause button. Another user, ヒロ, concurred, saying he has never found a truly essential use for it or for the 6-axis sensor and wishes the controller would be cheaper without them. While at it, he tossed in a wish for back buttons, which, yeah, would be nice.
Very much classic console-war energy. “But can’t use the dualshock 4 to play ps5 games. Bet you do this crap with the dualsense now with the ps6…” Zachariah noted the irony. It stood as a legitimate gripe about the controller compatibility between generations. And Johnny Boy further roused on the stick drift complaints, bragging that his older controllers from PS1 through to PS4 have none, unlike the “piece of crap” DualSense. Ouch.
Outside of the chaos came a few specific requests for games. Jonathan Clarke demanded, no beating around the bush: “Give me Xenogears and Breath of Fire 3 you cowards.” And Gun14Slinger took the tip in good stride, noting that it makes sense since the touchpad is the pause/inventory button in the Resident Evil classics.
But the award for best unimpressed reply goes to Calvin Milledge with: “@AskPlayStation So I’ve noticed.” No exclamation points, no anger, just dry acknowledgment. Legend.
Funny how a simple little helpful tip regarding button mapping instantly opens the floodgates to every single grievance the player base has. It’s almost like Sony stabbed a beehive with a very pointed stick. The Classics Catalog is a great feature, especially for PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers, but, really, this reveal just goes to show that players are already thinking about the bigger picture: backwards compatibility, hardware issues, and the future of the platform.
Anyway, now you know where to look for Select and Start. It’s something very minor, but a little crucial bit of info for anyone diving back into the classics. The rest of the conversation? That’s just the Internet doing what it always does-one beautiful, messy, and completely predictable train wreck, especially when compared to the Xbox community’s usual vibe.
