I find it odd that even in 1995 they felt the need to put in a select button when the d-pad could be used. And then it disappeared for good in 1996 with the N64. I understand why they did it with the Game Boy and NES, video games were still a new thing and people may have gotten confused, but even when the SNES came out, I doubt many people used its select button. Does any VB game use select? (besides 3d Tetris, I think I read somewhere that it used every single controller button) I purposely put it in Pineapple 64 because I don’t think it deserves the respect it needs.

Actually, (nearly?) every game uses it. In all/most games, if you pause and then press Select, you get the alignment screen again.

However, I agree that it is mostly superfluous, which is why I think we should put it to better use.

BTW, it didn’t actually disappear “for good”, since the Wii and GB/DS families of consoles have them (although in the Wiis’ case it’s called “-“). Also, the “Z” button on the GC controller was mostly relegated to the function of a Select button in many games (and the Game Boy Player), likely due to its awkward placement.

Someone needs to fix that page!

“parallel load”

Done.

(Actually, KR155E needs to fix the Wiki so it either supports HTML entities, or knows how to properly deal with Unicode, or both.)

RunnerPack wrote:
BTW, it didn’t actually disappear “for good”, since the Wii and GB/DS families of consoles have them (although in the Wiis’ case it’s called “-“). Also, the “Z” button on the GC controller was mostly relegated to the function of a Select button in many games (and the Game Boy Player), likely due to its awkward placement.

Fun fact: the Select button is deprecated with the latest 3DS games. Nintendo has both the Select and Start buttons wired together in software, making them each behave as a Start button. The Select button exists on the 3DS only for backward compatibility reasons. Looks like the final nail in its coffin…

blitter wrote:
Fun fact: the Select button is deprecated with the latest 3DS games.

Very interesting! I hadn’t even noticed (which just shows how useless the select button really is, I guess ;-))

The select button confused me as a kid. Why do I need to press select when I should just be able to press the directional pad? At least on the earlier controllers it was used as an extra button on a lacking controller in some games, but man those games that made me use select to go between options always bothered me.

There’s a very simple argument for the Select button: without the Select button, the VB pad would not be as nicely symmetric as it is. Also, as a developer, I am very glad I have another button to work with. 🙂

Adding to the problem, on most controllers it’s always been far enough away from your primary inputs (D-pad and action buttons) as to be pretty useless in most situations. Start, on the other hand, is almost universally used as a pause button, when it would make sense to be taking your “finger off the trigger,” as it were.

I still remember seeing the Gamecube controller for the first time, and thinking to myself, “That’s crazy, how can they make a controller without a Select button?!” while being COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS to the fact that the N64 controller never had one, and I’d never missed it… 🙂

Hi Gang,
the Wii U makes great use of the select button in Super Mario Maker. You can use the select button to toggle between edit and play modes in stead of having to drag out the stylus each time!:)

I can’t speak much for the VB but the SNES used the “Select” button quite a bit. A few example that come to mind are:

Super Mario World
Batman Forever
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
TMNT IV: Turtles In Time
Sim City

Glover wrote:
Adding to the problem, on most controllers it’s always been far enough away from your primary inputs (D-pad and action buttons) as to be pretty useless in most situations. Start, on the other hand, is almost universally used as a pause button, when it would make sense to be taking your “finger off the trigger,” as it were.

I still remember seeing the Gamecube controller for the first time, and thinking to myself, “That’s crazy, how can they make a controller without a Select button?!” while being COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS to the fact that the N64 controller never had one, and I’d never missed it… 🙂

True…

KR155E wrote:
There’s a very simple argument for the Select button: without the Select button, the VB pad would not be as nicely symmetric as it is.

I always liked the two symmetric d-pads. It looks silly at first. However, they are clearly designed to enable playing FPS similar to the way you play them with dual analog sticks nowadays. I always wondered if Sony’s famous dual analog stick controller got inspired by the Virtual Boy. It was released in late 96 after all.

The one thing Atari got right with the Jaguar is the combination of Pause/Option buttons on the controller. As much as I hate that controller, those two things at least make more sense than Start/Select. When you think about it, ‘Select’ kind of implies that you’re actually ‘selecting’ something whereas that button usually just highlights the next option.

thunderstruck wrote:
I always liked the two symmetric d-pads. It looks silly at first. However, they are clearly designed to enable playing FPS similar to the way you play them with dual analog sticks nowadays. I always wondered if Sony’s famous dual analog stick controller got inspired by the Virtual Boy. It was released in late 96 after all.

I always thought the same thing. It’s gotta be the precursor the dual analog, it just fits.

HP Lovethrash wrote:
The one thing Atari got right with the Jaguar is the combination of Pause/Option buttons on the controller. As much as I hate that controller, those two things at least make more sense than Start/Select. When you think about it, ‘Select’ kind of implies that you’re actually ‘selecting’ something whereas that button usually just highlights the next option.

Agreed.