Why select and start?

Question

From the NES up until the seventh generation of video games, video game controllers have featured a "Start" button and some these platforms had a "select" button. The select button hardly seems to be used these days, and the start button always pauses the game. Why are these buttons labeled "Start" and "Select"?

Answer

"Start" would be used to start the game from the Title Screen. "Select" would be used to select from the options presented in the start menu (such as 1 or 2 players). Some early games actually didn't use the directional pad at the start menu, so the only thing that worked was the Select button.

Start also became a de-facto pause button because interrupting the game is separate from the normal activity of the game. This matches its utility in starting the game as "administrative" in nature. This is also probably why they're kept separate from the "face" buttons (A + B).

Since most option prompts in later games use D-Pads or joysticks to go through a lot more options, the usage of Select has indeed fallen out of usage. On the consoles where it does still exist, it's mostly used as a secondary administrative button, doing things that aren't on the level of face buttons in importance, but also not as high as Start.

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