There’s always been a minor niggle at the back of my mind when I played the Nintendo DS. “They’ve got it backwards,” I thought, “The A button should be on the left and B on the right. That’s how it’s always been… I think.” A speedy investigation showed that my memory was a little foggy, and that the answer was significantly more interesting than that. Therefore, I present to you a brief history of gamepad button mapping.

Nintendo: BA for Life

The NES was the first console to move away from the joysticks of the Atari generation, opting instead for what would become an iconic design in gamepads. Despite my previous complaint, note that A is indeed mapped to the right of B. D’oh!

Following their ancestor’s example, nearly every Nintendo console is mapped this way. This includes the SNES, Virtual Boy, Gamecube, every iteration of the Game Boy, DS and Wii Classic Controller. The only dissenters are the Nintendo 64 (bottom right picture), which also experimented with a 4 way C button and a Z button on the back, and the Wiimote, which maps A and B on different surfaces entirely.

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Although this partnership has been announced as early as July this year, it is only now that Facebook has finally integrated the Live Search service onto its website. While I fail to see how this may enrich users’ social networking experience, the collaboration is obviously a big deal for Microsoft, with Facebook now the biggest social network in the world and quickly catching up to MySpace in the US.

Starting today, Facebook users typing in the search bar on Facebook will notice that a drop-down menu appears with a new option to “search the Web.” Results will appear on a new Facebook page, with advertisements placed on the right of the screen.

Live Search usage is likely to increase and media buyers will get added inventory to serve up ads within the social network – which of course means more revenue for Microsoft. In its current form, however, the deal probably won’t do much to help the Live Search brand, seeing that there’s virtually indication that you are using Microsoft’s search engine besides a tiny “Advanced search on Live.com” text link on the results page.

According to our main homeboys / homegirls at GameDaily, Microsoft has confirmed that it’s dropping the price of that big, delicious Xbox 360 hard drive from the dizzingly high $179 to a totally thrifty $149. According to a Redmond rep: “We reduced the price of the Xbox 360 120 GB Hard Drive to $149 in conjunction with the recent Xbox 360 console price drop. We believe this offers consumers even greater value when selecting accessories that meet their individual gaming and entertainment needs.” Hey, no need to explain — we like things to be cheaper.

Original

In Computer Heaven:
The management is from Intel,
The design and construction is done by Apple,
The marketing is done by Microsoft,
IBM provides the support,
Gateway determines the pricing.

In Computer Hell:
The management is from Apple,
Microsoft does design and construction,
IBM handles the marketing,
The support is from Gateway,
Intel sets the price.

originally from here